Parents, 3 children hurt in West Bank firebombing



Two Israeli parents and their three young children were wounded Friday in a firebombing attack on their car near the settlement of Beit El, in the West Bank north of Jerusalem.The family members suffered burns of various degrees. The youngest girl, aged four, was moderately hurt. Her brother, 12-year-old sister and mother and father were lightly injured.

The five were treated at the scene by Magen David Adom medics and evacuated to a Jerusalem hospital for further treatment.


Clashes were reported Friday afternoon throughout the West Bank and the Gaza Strip, with several Israelis and Palestinians injured in the confrontations.

In the West Bank, riots were reported in the Bethlehem and Hebron areas as well as near Qalqilya, Tulkarem and Ramallah. Palestinian protesters engaged security forces while throwing rocks and Molotov cocktails at the troops, who responded with riot dispersal measures and in some cases reportedly used live fire.

Palestinians said dozens were hurt in the West Bank during the day. A 13-year-old Palestinian boy was seriously injured near Ramallah. Palestinians said he was shot by Israeli troops during clashes outside Beit El. Two Palestinians were reported wounded during riots in Halhul, near Hebron. Reports said a 24-year-old was shot in the head and a 16-year-old in the leg. Both were both evacuated to a Palestinian hospital in Hebron. According to the Walla news website, they were hit by small caliber bullets fired by IDF soldiers.

An IDF soldier was lightly hurt by a rock in Givat Assaf, an Israeli outpost near Beit El. He was treated by medics and taken to hospital.
In the morning, an IDF soldier was stabbed and wounded in the shoulder by a 16-year-old Palestinian in the Gush Etzion settlement bloc. The soldier shot his assailant in the knee to thwart the attack
Meanwhile residents of a Jerusalem neighborhood apparently prevented a stabbing attack when they spotted a man acting suspiciously and called police. The man was caught with a knife on his person and arrested.

The Quartet of Middle East peacemakers — US Secretary of State John Kerry, his Russian counterpart Sergey Lavrov, EU foreign policy chief Federica Mogherini and UN chief Ban Ki-moon — were to hold talks on the escalating violence on Friday.









King Abdullah of Jordan has sent Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas an urgent message to calm tensions in the West Bank, Channel 10 reported Friday evening, citing unnamed Jordanian sources.

According to the report, Abdullah warned Abbas that an intifada, or violent uprising, in the West Bank would spill over to Jordan.

The Jordanian king reportedly told Abbas that he is worried weekly mass protests in the Jordanian capital, Amman, will become hard to contain and may spiral into violence.

Jordanian protesters, prompted by the escalating violence in Israel, as well as perceived attempts by Israel to change the status quo on the Temple Mount, have called on the Jordanian government to cut ties with Israel and expel the Israeli ambassador from Amman.

Earlier on Friday, Palestinian sources said that Jordan and the Palestinian Authority are expected to demand from the US that control over Jewish visits to the Temple Mount in Jerusalem be restored to the Jordanian Muslim authority that administers the site.

Abbas and King Abdullah II were to raise the issue with Secretary of State John Kerry, who is in the region this weekend, the sources said.
Amman and the PA are seeking to return responsibility over visits to the Temple Mount — the holiest site in Judaism and third-holiest in Islam — to the Waqf, as it was before the start of the Second Intifada in September 2000.

The demand for Muslim oversight on Jewish access to the Temple Mount was first made by the Palestinian Authority on Thursday. “Israel must restore control of the Temple Mount to the Waqf,” said one official close to Abbas. “This is one of the only measures that can help calm the current situation.”

Palestinian sources also told The Times of Israel that Abbas will tell Kerry during their meeting in Amman on Saturday that he is interested in renewing peace talks with Israel and abiding by previous agreements, but that Jerusalem must first freeze all settlement activity and release the final 26 prisoners it had agreed to free last year as part of a US-brokered concession to Abbas.










The Palestine Liberation Organization is once again threatening to disband the Palestinian Authority and transfer overall control of West Bank towns and cities to Israel.


In an interview with Al Jazeera on Friday, the PLO's secretary-general and top peace negotiator, Saeb Erekat, said that the interim administration in Ramallah that was created by dint of the Oslo Accords is on the verge of shutting down.


"Very soon, you’re going to hear some decisions," Erekat told Al Jazeera. "We are an authority without an authority. Soon enough [Prime Minister Benjamin] Netanyahu will find himself the only [one] responsible between the river Jordan and the Mediterranean because he’s destroying the Palestinian Authority.”


“The PA...is being destroyed, finished by Netanyahu," Erekat said. "Now we’re not going to be an authority by name. Yes, if Netanyahu thinks he can sustain the status quo we’re telling him you’re wrong and you’re invited to assume your powers as the occupying power.”


When asked about the recent wave of Palestinian violence against Israelis in Jerusalem and elsewhere, Erekat said “we don't condone the killing of people, we want to make peace, we want to save lives, Israelis and Palestinians”.

The veteran peace negotiator also accused Netanyahu of aiming for an “apartheid” regime in Israel and the West Bank.

He doesn’t seek a two-state solution, he seeks one state, two systems – apartheid,” Erekat said.

The Palestinians have threatened to dissolve the PA on numerous occasions in the past, only to backtrack under pressure from Israel and the United States.

“Israel has destroyed the foundations upon which the political and security agreements are based,” Abbas said.

“We therefore declare that we cannot continue to be bound by these agreements and that Israel must assume all its responsibilities as an occupying power, because the status quo cannot continue....As long as Israel refuses to cease settlement activities and release of the fourth group of Palestinian prisoners in accordance with our agreements, it leaves us no choice but to insist that we will not remain the only ones committed to the implementation of these agreements.”


Abbas warned that either the PA would be a transitional power moving toward independent statehood, or Israel must take full control of the Palestinian people as an occupying power.

“Either the Palestinian National Authority will be the conduit of the Palestinian people from occupation to independence, or Israel, the occupying power, must bear all of its responsibilities,” he said. “The state of Palestine, based on pre-1967 borders with east Jerusalem as its capital, is recognized by 137 countries and should be considered a state under occupation, as was the case for many countries during World War II.”