Knife-wielding Palestinian injures 3 in central Israel

Israeli police said Saturday a Palestinian stabbed and wounded three Israelis north of Tel Aviv, in a rare attack on the Jewish Sabbath amidst a wave of Israeli-Palestinian violence.

Police spokeswoman Luba Samri said a 20-year-old Palestinian stabbed a Jewish man and woman in Ra'anana, a city north of Tel Aviv. As police forces arrived at the scene, he fled to a nearby street, where he stabbed another woman.

Police then caught and arrested him, said Samri.

A spokesman for the emergency services said the assailant seriously injured a man in his forties by stabbings to his abdomen, and lightly injured two women.

According to Samri, the attacker is a resident of the West Bank village of Tamun, near Jenin, who crossed into Israel without permits.

The incident was the latest in a three-month spate of Israeli-Palestinian violence that has killed 19 Israelis, two foreign nationals and at least 120 Palestinians.

On Friday, Israeli forces killed three Palestinians in the West Bank and the Gaza Strip. Soldiers shot and killed Mohammed Ayyad, 20, after he attempted to run over them during clashes in Silwad village near Ramallah, Israeli and Palestinian officials said. None of the soldiers suffered injuries.

Also in the West Bank, the Palestinian Health Ministry announced that 33-year-old Nashat Asfour died of injuries sustained during clashes in Sinjil village north of Ramallah.

Some 21 people were injuries by Israeli firing on Friday in clashes that erupted in several areas in the West Bank, the health ministry said.

In Gaza, Mahmoud Al-Agha, in his twenties, was shot during clashes between the Palestinians and Israeli forces in the borderline area between the Gaza Strip and Israel.

While Israel says the violence stems from a Palestinian incitement, the Palestinians accuses Israel of its nearly 50-year-long occupation of the West Bank, East Jerusalem and the Gaza Strip, where they wish to establish a Palestinian state. Enditem