Israeli Forces Say Killed Three Terrorists in Yerushalayim, Chevron

Israeli forces shot dead three Arab terrorists in separate incidents in Yerushalayim and in Chevron on Friday, police and the military said, in a flare-up of a nearly year-old wave of Palestinian street attacks.

With most anti-Israeli assaults carried out since October by individuals without any central guiding hand, it was difficult to gauge why violence had surged on Friday. The frequency of what had been near-daily attacks had slowed in recent months.

At the heavily-patrolled Shaar Shechem, a main entrance to Yerushalayim’s walled Old City, a knife-wielding man attempted to stab police officers and was shot dead by Israeli forces, a police spokesman said.

He was identified by police as a resident of Jordan. It was not immediately clear if he was a Jordanian national.

The military said in a statement that a car carrying two Palestinians terrorists rammed into a civilian bus stop at a junction near the settlement of Kiryat Arba, outside the town of Chevron.

“In the attack, three civilians were injured. In response to the immediate threat, forces at the scene fired at the vehicle, resulting in the death of one of the assailants while the other was wounded,” the statement said.

Several hours later, a Palestinian stabbed an Israeli soldier at a junction near Chevron, and forces at the scene shot the attacker dead, the military said.

Palestinian terrorists, many of them acting alone and with rudimentary weapons, have killed at least 33 Israelis and two visiting Americans in attacks that have waned in recent months.

Palestinian leaders say assailants have acted out of desperation over the collapse of peace talks in 2014 and Israeli settlement expansion in Yehudah and Shomron that Palestinians seek for an independent state, with eastern Yerushalayim as its capital.

Israel says anti-Israeli incitement by Palestinian officials and on social networks have stoked attacks.