Israel's Netanyahu announces new measures to curb Palestinian attacks

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Monday announced more measures aimed at fighting Palestinian attackers, as a two-month-long wave of violence persists.

Netanyahu, who toured the West Bank's Gush Etzion Jewish settlement bloc, south of Jerusalem, on Monday, said the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) was stepping up its operations in the West Bank and had been given "free rein" in their battle against a wave of Palestinian attacks that have left 19 Israelis dead.

"We are going everywhere. We are entering into villages, communities and homes and are carrying out widespread arrests," Netanyahu said, adding that there is "no restriction on the actions of the IDF and the security forces."

Among the new measures planned, Channel 2 reported, are wide-ranging arrests of Hamas activists in the West Bank.

Netanyahu also mentioned that in addition to reinforcing Israeli security forces, the army will carry out "additional operations."

The Israeli prime minister said security forces will check each Palestinian vehicle traveling on major West Bank roads and that they have set up a bypass to the Gush Etzion junction -- where several attacks took place -- for Israeli cars only.

Another punitive measure Israeli authorities plan to take, Netanyahu said, is the extensive revocation of work permits for the families of Palestinian attackers.

About 60,000 Palestinians from the West Bank currently have work permits in Israel.

Netanyahu is set to meet with U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry on Tuesday morning, as the latter will arrive in Israel overnight in hopes of curtailing the two-month long wave of violence.

Kerry will also meet with Israeli President Reuven Rivlin and Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas in the hopes of quashing the violence.

"This is an effort to see if we can get some concrete steps in place that could calm things down, so people don't live in a daily routine of terror in which they may be stabbed, or driven into, or shot," Kerry told reporters in Abu Dhabi on Monday, according to Israeli media reports.

"Too many Israelis have been killed and stabbed, and too many Palestinians. There's no excuse for any of the violence," Kerry added.

On Monday, three Palestinians and an Israeli solder were killed in a fresh spate of violence.

Israeli soldier Ziv Mizrachi, 18, was stabbed and killed at a gas station on route 443, a major highway connecting central Israel with Jerusalem and the West Bank. The Palestinian attacker was shot dead.

The attacker also stabbed and lightly wounded a 20-year-old woman Israeli soldier, before "forces on the site responded to the imminent danger and fired at the attacker, resulting in his death," a military spokesperson said in a statement.

The statement said that a third woman was lightly injured, apparently by a stray bullet fired by Israeli soldiers as they shot the stabber.

Earlier, a soldier shot and killed a Palestinian who was said to approach him with a knife at a military post near Nablus.

In another attack near the Jewish settlement of Shavei Shomron, northwest of Nablus, a Palestinian driver rammed his vehicle at a pedestrian, lightly wounding him. The military said that forces launched a manhunt to catch the driver who fled the scene.

In the morning, two Palestinian high school girls, aged 14 and 16, stabbed and lightly injured a 70-year-old Palestinian man, apparently mistaken for Israeli, in a busy outdoor market in Jerusalem. Police shot and killed one of them and critically wounded the other.

More than 85 Palestinians have been killed since Oct. 1, some during clashes with Israeli security forces in the West Bank, East Jerusalem and Gaza territories, while others were gunned down by Israeli security forces and vigilante citizens while allegedly trying to carry out attacks.

The Palestinians charge Israel has been using excessive force against attackers, even after neutralizing the threat, and some accused Israel of planting knives on attackers.

The violence started amid unrest over the east Jerusalem holy site known as the al-Aqsa compound to Muslims, or Temple Mount for Jews, and spread into full-blown violence amid dim prospects of renewing the peace process.

Israel occupied the West Bank, east Jerusalem and Gaza Strip territories, where Palestinians wish to establish a state according to the two-state solution, in the 1967 Mideast War. Enditem