JERUSALEM - Fresh violence flared between Israelis and Palestinians Sunday as Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu agreed to install security cameras at the flashpoint Al-Aqsa mosque compound in a bid to defuse tensions.
A Palestinian stabbed and wounded an Israeli man in the West Bank and a Palestinian was shot several times by an Israeli settler while picking olives, according to the army and security sources.
Knife attacks, shootings and protests have become a near daily occurrence since October 1 in the latest surge of violence in the decades-old conflict, sparking a diplomatic scramble to defuse what many fear may become a new Palestinian intifada, or uprising. The focal point of the latest unrest is the Al-Aqsa mosque compound in Jerusalem, which is sacred to both Muslims and Jews, and Netanyahu on Saturday agreed on new measures to allay Palestinian fears that he plans to change longstanding rules governing the site.
Netanyahu vowed Jews would continue to be allowed to visit but not pray at the compound and agreed that 24-hour surveillance cameras could be installed.
"Israel has an interest in placing cameras on all parts of the Temple Mount," Netanyahu said in a statement Sunday, using the Jewish term for the compound in annexed east Jerusalem.
"Firstly, to refute the claim Israel is violating the status quo. Secondly, to show where the provocations are really coming from, and prevent them in advance."
However Saeb Erakat, secretary general of the Palestine Liberation Organisation (PLO), the recognised representative of Palestinians, said Netanyahu's statements were "only words, not concrete actions."
"There will not be calm without political prospects to definitively end the occupation," said Nabil Shaath, an official from Palestinian president Mahmud Abbas's West Bank-based Fatah.
Moreover, a Palestinian girl was shot dead by Israeli border police. "A Palestinian woman acting suspiciously approached border police forces. She was requested to identify herself when she suddenly drew a knife and approached the forces yelling. The forces shot at her and neutralised her," a police statement said. Police pronounced the Palestinian dead and identified her as 17-year-old Dania Irshaid.
Police said none of their forces were harmed in the attack, which took place near the shrine known to Jews as the Cave of the Patriarchs and to Muslims as the Ibrahimi Mosque. However several witnesses disputed the official version of events. One of them, Abdu Khader, said he was only metres (yards) away when he saw Irshaid approach the checkpoint, wearing a white headscarf. Raed Abu Rmileh posted a video on YouTube which shows the body of a woman clad in black lying on the ground surrounded by uniformed officers, her white headscarf covered in blood. "She was at the checkpoint. A soldier called her to go through her bag. She put her bag on the ground and then we heard shooting. The soldiers said she had a knife" but no weapon is visible in the video.