Violence Rises In West Bank, Despite Israeli Defense Minister Talking To Palestinian President

Illustration of Israeli security forces. (Wikimedia Commons/Israel Police)

JAKARTA - Violence and bloodshed have occurred in the West Bank region, claiming lives, even though the Israeli Defense Minister and Palestinian President had previously spoken on the phone, hoping for a peaceful Ramadan.

Israeli forces killed two Palestinian women on Sunday, after one of them ran into troops and the other stabbed a soldier in a separate incident in the occupied West Bank, Israeli security officials said.

With violence escalating after a series of deadly Arab attacks in Israel, a Palestinian man was killed by Israeli soldiers during what locals said was a confrontation with stone-throwers near the West Bank city of Bethlehem, the Palestinian health ministry announced.

The Israeli military said troops shot a Palestinian who threw a petrol bomb at an Israeli vehicle.

The bloodshed coincided with the start of the holy month of Ramadan, when Israeli-Palestinian violence erupted in the past and, last May, turned into an 11-day war between Gaza militants and Israel.

In Bethlehem, no weapons were found on the body of a Palestinian woman who was shot and killed after she ignored soldiers' calls and gunfire warnings to stop running towards them, the Israeli military said, adding it had started an investigation.

Hours later, a knife-wielding Palestinian woman was shot dead after she lightly injured a paramilitary border police officer in Hebron, outside the Tomb of the Patriarchs, what Muslims call the al-Ibrahimi mosque, Israeli security officials said.

Israeli forces are on high alert following attacks by three members of Israel's Arab minority, as well as two Palestinians from the West Bank that have killed 14 people in Israel since late March.

More than 20 Palestinians, many of them armed militants, have been killed by Israeli forces since January, while Palestinians have reported increased violence by Israeli settlers in the West Bank.

Separately, Hussein al-Sheikh, a senior Palestinian official, said the expansion of Israeli settlements in the occupied lands that Palestinians want for a state and visits by the Israeli right to the Al-Aqsa mosque compound in Jerusalem has led to the escalation.

As previously reported, Israeli Defense Minister Benny Gantz called Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas, wishing him peace and tranquility during Ramadan. Minister Gantz wished him a happy month of Ramadan in a phone call with President Abbas.

"Minister Gantz wished President Abbas and the Palestinian people a happy month of Ramadan. "Ramadan should be a month of peace and quiet, not a period marked by terror," Gantz's office said, citing The National News.

On the same occasion, Minister Gantz expressed 'appreciation' for President Abbas' comments about the attack in the town of Bnei Brak near Tel Aviv late last month.

President Abbas has issued a rare condemnation of the March 29 attack, in which five people were killed after a Palestinian opened fire at passers-by.

He said the killing "will only lead to a further worsening of the situation, while we all strive for stability."