Update 2: Palestinians mark int'l day of solidarity with rallies, stage more stabbing attacks
Xinhua, November 29, 2015 Adjust font size:
Sunday marks the International Day of Solidarity with the Palestinian people, who urged active international actions to end the Israeli occupation of their land and to help them establish an independent state.
The date was chosen to mark the adoption of the UN partition resolution on November 29, 1947, according to which a Jewish state and and Arab state should be established. However, the Palestinians have so far not been able to have their own country.
In Gaza, hundreds of Palestinians marked the day with rallies, and chanted anti-Israeli occupation slogans.
Foreign minister of the Palestinian National Authority also called for stronger international actions to end the Israeli military occupation.
"The world is asked now more than before to bear its moral and legal responsibilities towards respecting the principles of the international laws to end the Israeli military occupation and bring the Palestinians their legitimate rights," said the ministry in an emailed press statement.
The ministry also urged the world community to recognize the state of Palestine with east Jerusalem as its capital and back all the Palestinian initiatives to join other world agencies and treaties.
The special day came amid a surge of stabbing, shooting and car-ramming attacks by Palestinians in the past two months that killed 19 Israelis.
More than 100 Palestinians have been killed during this violent period, with some killed in clashes with Israeli security forces, and others killed by security forces and vigilante citizens while allegedly trying to carry out attacks.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Sunday charged recent attacks by Palestinians are motivated by Muslim extremism rather than resistance to the Israeli occupation, shortly after two attacks occurred in Jerusalem.
"What motivates this terrorism is objection to the existence of the state of Israel as the Jewish people's national state," Netanyahu said at the start of the weekly cabinet meeting, according to a statement from his office.
"This resistance contains an element of extremist Islam, which also takes root throughout the world, in Paris, London, Madrid and Mali, where there are no settlements and (occupied) territories, but rather objection to the existence of these entities, of free, independent and democratic societies," he added.
Netanyahu, who will be meeting with international leaders including Russian President Vladimir Putin and French President Francois Hollande on Monday amid a climate change summit in Paris, made the statements shortly after two attacks were carried out by Palestinians in Jerusalem.
In the first attack on Sunday morning, an Israeli border police officer suffered light to moderate wounds amid a stabbing attack close to the Damascus Gate, the entry to the Old City of Jerusalem, in the east part of town, which Israel occupied during the 1967 Mideast War.
The assailant was shot and killed by officers at the scene, the Israeli police said in a statement.
Soon thereafter, a 30-year-old Israeli resident, originally from the Philippines, was stabbed in her back in central Jerusalem by a 17-year-old Palestinian. The assailant escaped from the scene, and captured by the Israeli police less than an hour later at a construction site near the scene of the attack.
On a related matter, the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) together with the Shin Bet Security Agency raided and shut down a Palestinian radio station overnight in the West Bank city of Hebron, the third such raid in the past month, a military spokesperson told Xinhua.
In the overnight raid at the "Radio Dream" offices on Sunday, Israeli soldiers confiscated equipment and documents, and shut them down. Israel charges the popular station for instigating violence against Israelis. The station was closed until May 26, 2016.
The current wave of violence was sparked by strife over the flashpoint site of the al-Aqsa mosque in east Jerusalem, holy to both Jews and Muslims, and quickly spread to outbursts of violence throughout the country and Palestinian territories.
While Israeli right wing politician blame the Palestinian Authority and media outlets for incitement responsible for the current wave of violence, Palestinian officials blame Israel for its 50-year occupation of the West Bank, east Jerusalem and Gaza Strip territories, where they wish to establish a Palestinian state, in accordance with the two-state solution. Endit