LIVE BLOG: The Third Intifada - the uprising spreads
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An observer for Human Rights Watch was wounded by rubber bullets from Israeli security forces and possibly live fire at a demonstration on 6 October in the West Bank, the organisation said on Sunday.
The woman was at the protest outside Ramallah in the early hours of 6 October when two rubber-coated steel bullets hit her flak jacket, the US-based group said, without revealing her identity. A third bullet, apparently live, either grazed her hand or exploded nearby, sending shrapnel into her hand.
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has asked the attorney general to open a probe against MK Haneen Zoabi, from the Joint List for allegedly inciting violence.
Comments made to a Hamas newspaper, published over the weekend, in which Zoabi said that “hundreds of thousands of worshippers must ascent to al-Aqsa to stand against the Israeli plot to allow the blood of East Jerusalem residents to be spilled," were cited as evidence against her.
Legislators tried to ban her from standing for elections earlier this year, but the ruling was overturned by the country’s Supreme Court.
Protests have been reported at the Huwara checkpoint near Nablus in the northern West Bank.
The survey also found that a full third of Israelis believed that more hard-right politicians, such as former Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman and Education Minister Naftali Bennett, should be made responsible for responding to the attacks.
Some 5,000 left wing protestors gathered outside Netanyahu's residence in Jerusalem on Saturday evening, with people calling for him to step down.
France on Sunday warned that the escalation in violence was "extremely worrying and dangerous".
The office of President Francois Hollande said "everything must be done to calm the situation and end this cycle (of violence) which has already caused too many victims".
A pregnant Palestinian mother and her toddler daughter were killed when an Israeli retaliatory air strike demolished their home in the northern Gaza Strip, medical sources said early on Sunday.
The fatalities were identified as Nur Hassan, 30, and her daughter Rahaf Hassan, aged three. Medics said three others were still trapped under the home's ruins in the Zeitun sector south of Gaza City. The father and two-year-old son were injured in the attack, Palestinian sources said.
Israel said it had targeted "two Hamas weapon manufacturing facilities" in response to two rocket launches at Israel on Saturday, as well as a number of attempts by Palestinians to violently break into Israel from Gaza.
A recap of yesterday's events:
- Several Israeli's including two policemen were stabbed by Israeli attackers
- More than 400 Palestinians were injured in clashes with police
- Two Palestinian attackers and two demonstrators were killed in the West Bank and East Jerusalem
- Israeli rockets hit Gaza in retaliation for rockets fired into Israel on Saturday morning
Translated from Channel 2, an Israeli broadcast network, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Minister of Public Security Gilad Erdan approved the placement of hundreds of reserve army units - numbering hundreds of security personnel - in Jerusalem.
Several Israeli opposition parties have called for Netanyahu's resignation following the wave of violence that has gripped Israel and Palestine.
The secular party Meretz called for Netanyahu’s resignation on Saturday night during a protest in front of his official residence in Jerusalem.
Party chairwoman Zehava Gal-On urged the prime minister to negotiate with the Palestinians instead of “managing the conflict”.
“Whoever doesn’t recognize this threat and continues to play the victim, finding excuses for refusing [to negotiate] and blabbering about Iran, and bribing his friends with natural gas or a casino in Eilat, is a failed prime minister who is not worthy of being prime minister and has to go home,” she said at a Meretz demonstration near the Prime Minister’s Office in Jerusalem.
“The whole country is on fire, and instead of voicing hope and calm, what we hear are messages of hatred, incitement and racism from rabbis, from organizations that already committed hate crimes in the past and from right-wing politicians,” she added.
Kinesset member (MK) Yoel Hasson of the Zionist Union, a former Likud activist and aide to Likud MKs, said that many leaders who sat in the building outside which he was demonstrating knew how to fight terrorism, but not Netanyahu.
"For six years, Netanyahu has been prime minister and didn't do anything to create a diplomatic horizon. For six years he abandoned the Palestinian arena and the result is dozens of terrorist attacks in recent days. Netanyahu is not using a strong enough hand against terrorism and isn't presenting a diplomatic horizon. Today, the nation knows Netanyahu is not a leader," Hasson stated.
MK Eitan Broshi, also of the Zionist Union, however, said he supports the prime minister, defense minister and public security minister in their fight against terrorism.
According to Haaretz, dozens of Palestinians managed to break through the security fence along the southern Gaza Strip. Israeli forces arrested five people and turned the rest back into the Strip.
Jerusalem District Police Chief Moshe Adri tells reporters:
Earlier today MEE contributor Faiz Abu Rmeleh was roughed up by Israeli police for taking photos in East Jerusalem.
This footage of the incident was taken by his colleague Samer Malamy.
Red Crescent spokesperson Errab Foqoha told Middle East Eye that so far today, 421 Palestinians have been injured today.
This included "20 [who were hit with] live bullets, 102 rubber coated [steel] bullets, [and] 301 from tear gas inhalation," she said. "One was beaten."
Journalists covering the conflict have been increasingly caught up in the violence. Photographer Essam al-Reemawi was shot in the foot by a rubber bullet near the Beit Eil settlement, north of Ramallah.
He said the shot was fires some 50 metres from him and that another photographer was also hit.