RAMALLAH, West Bank – Stone-throwing protests erupted across the West Bank and Gaza on Friday, and assailants firebombed a site revered by Jews as the tomb of biblical Joseph on a “day of rage” against Israel. Four Palestinians were killed by Israeli fire, including a laborer disguised as a journalist who stabbed an Israeli soldier.
The U.N. Security Council convened an emergency meeting to discuss the escalation, which has been marked by a spate of Palestinian stabbing attacks and an Israeli security crackdown. Troops manned roadblocks in Arab neighborhoods of Jerusalem, a center of unrest, and ordered some Palestinian men to lift their shirts to show they were not armed.
The violence comes at a time when a possible partition of the land between the Jordan River and the Mediterranean into two states – Palestine alongside Israel – is fading.
This has left many Palestinians frustrated because all paths to independence appear blocked. The tensions have also been stoked by Palestinian fears that Israel is trying to expand its presence at a major Muslim-run shrine in Jerusalem, a claim Israel has denied.
Taye-Brook Zerihoun, a senior U.N. official, told the Security Council that Israel’s long rule over the Palestinians and diminishing prospects for achieving a Palestinian state have transformed “long-simmering Palestinian anger into outright rage.” The current crisis cannot be resolved by security measures alone, Zerihoun warned.