Occupation forces deploy massively in Jerusalem

Israeli occupation forces deployed massively in Jerusalem on Thursday as a wave of Palestinian acts of resistance continued.

Some 300 soldiers were reinforcing Israeli troops, stretched thin by a two-week upsurge in resistance that has raised fears of the eruption of a third Palestinian Intifada, or uprising, Agence France-Presse reported.

The last time soldiers deployed in such large numbers was in 2002, during the second Intifada, the agency quoted a military source as saying.

At stops along the highway between Jerusalem and the West Bank city of Hebron, a major junction to other points in the occupied territory, Israeli forces were boarding and searching every bus.

In addition to the attacks, violent protests have rocked occupied East Jerusalem, the occupied West Bank and the Gaza Strip.

At least 30 Palestinians have died, including alleged attackers, and hundreds more have been wounded in confrontations with Israeli forces.

Seven Israelis have been killed and dozens wounded.

In the first two intifadas, in 1987-1993 and 2000-2005, hundreds of people were killed and many more hurt in near daily confrontations.

Israel has set up roadblocks in the Palestinian neighbourhoods of Israeli-occupied East Jerusalem in a measure that Palestinian officials describe as collective punishment.

Many Palestinians are frustrated with the failure of years of diplomacy meant to bring them statehood and end Israeli settlement-building in the West Bank and East Jerusalem, areas Israel occupied in the 1967 Middle East War.

Islamist group Hamas has been vocal in supporting the resistance, and it called for “rallies of anger and confrontations” to be held in West Bank cities after Friday prayer, according to Reuters.