New Intifada looming as Israel kills more Palestinians

OCCUPIED JERUSALEM — Confrontations between Palestinian youth and the Israeli occupation forces threatened to spiral out of control Saturday after protests spread to Gaza, the Palestinian death toll rose and a new stabbing by a 16-year-old hit Jerusalem.

While Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas have sought to avoid an escalation, frustrated Palestinian youths continued their uprising and a wave of stabbings has spread fear in Israel.

A rocket fired by Gaza fighters hit southern Israel on Saturday hours after Israeli forces opened fire and killed seven Palestinians on Gaza border.

The rocket caused no damage and there was no immediate claim of responsibility. 

The uprising has shaken occupied East Jerusalem and the occupied West Bank, with Palestinians throwing stones and firebombs at Israeli occupation forces, who have responded with live fire, rubber bullets, tear gas and stun grenades.

A 22-year-old Palestinian shot by Israeli forces during clashes in East Jerusalem late Friday died of his wounds Saturday. 

The Gaza Strip had been mainly calm amid the unrest elsewhere, but Friday’s clashes further heightened fears that a wider Palestinian uprising, or Intifada, could erupt.

Clashes broke out on Friday east of Gaza City and Khan Younis along the border with Israel.

Seven Palestinians were killed, including a 15-year old, and 145 were wounded, medics said. 

It was the worst day of violence in the Palestinian enclave since last summer’s war with Israel, which killed more than 2,200, mostly women and children, and left 100,000 homeless.

The clashes came as Hamas’ chief in Gaza, Ismail Haniyeh, spoke of a new Intifada and urged further resistance of the occupation.

Hamas, which rules Gaza, remains deeply divided from Abbas’ Fateh, based in the West Bank. 

Some have called for coordination in order to build a resistance movement, but it is unclear whether the various Palestinian factions would be able to do so.

“It’s not important whether we call it an Intifada or a popular uprising,” Fateh official Mahmoud Al Alul told AFP. “What’s important is that the people and all the movements are united on the ground.”

Ali Al Qaradaghi, a prominent Muslim cleric, urged worshippers on Saturday to join what he described as an uprising.

“Every Muslim should contribute to the Intifada that started for the sake of Al Aqsa and Palestine,” he wrote on his Twitter account. Al Qaradaghi is a cleric at the Doha-based International Union of Muslim Scholars, headed by the spiritual leader of the Muslim Brotherhood, Sheikh Youssef Al Qaradawi.

Saturday’s stabbing attack just outside the Old City in East Jerusalem wounded two ultra-Orthodox Jewish settlers aged 62 and 65, Israeli forces and medics said.

Israeli forces said they shot and killed the 16-year-old Palestinian attacker, identified as Ishak Badran of Kafr Aqeb in East Jerusalem.

It was the 13th stabbing attack against Israeli settlers, while a 17-year-old Jew in the southern Israeli city of Dimona wounded two Palestinians and two Arab Israelis on Friday.

Israeli occupation forces said he told them he carried out the attack because he believed “all Arabs are terrorists”.

Netanyahu quickly condemned the attack by the Jewish youth, a sign of concerns that it could trigger further violence.

Abbas has spoken out against violence and in favour of “peaceful, popular resistance”, but many Palestinian youths are frustrated with his leadership as well as Israel’s government.

On Friday night, Israeli occupation troops arrested 10 Arab men for throwing stones and firebombs and rolling burning tyres forces in the north of the country.

The US State Department said it regards the stabbings and shootings of Israelis by Palestinians as “acts of terror” but spokesman John Kirby would not be drawn on whether the attack by the Jewish teenager was also terrorism.