Violence intensified in Occupied Jerusalem and the West Bank on Sunday after Israelis were targeted in two stabbing attacks and a Palestinian was killed in a clash with Israeli troops, officials said. A Palestinian man stabbed and wounded an Israeli teenager in Jerusalem, just hours after another knife-wielding attacker killed an off-duty Israeli soldier and a rabbi, nearby in the walled Old City, police said. Officers shot dead both Palestinians, a police spokesman said, and Israel's government announced it was barring Palestinians from entering the ancient district for two days, apart from people who lived there. Later in the day, an 18-year-old Palestinian man was shot dead by Israeli soldiers during clashes in Tulkarem in the occupied West Bank on Sunday, medics and Palestinian police sources said. Huzeifa Othman Suleiman is the first Palestinian to be killed in a fresh outbreak of violent clashes in the West Bank after a Palestinian attacker killed two Israelis in Jerusalem's Old City on Saturday evening, prompting Israel to tighten security. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu met security chiefs on Sunday to discuss more action to tackle rising violence in Occupied East Jerusalem, which includes the Old City, and the West Bank, areas that Israel captured in a 1967 war. In broadcast remarks, Netanyahu said the new measures would include speeding up the razing of homes of Palestinian attackers. Tensions have been further inflamed by frequent clashes between Palestinian and Israeli security forces at Jerusalem's al-Aqsa mosque compound. Palestinians have said they fear increasing visits by Jewish groups to al-Aqsa compound, revered by Jews as the site of Biblical temples, are eroding Muslim religious control there. Israel has pledged to maintain Muslim prayer rights at al-Aqsa but has frequently banned young Muslim men from entering the area on security grounds. Israeli-Palestinian peace talks collapsed in 2014.
