JERUSALEM // Four Palestinian teenagers were shot dead by Israeli security forces on Saturday – two, aged 16 and 19, outside the Old City in east Jerusalem, and another two east of Khan Younis in southern Gaza.
Marwan Darbakh, 13, and the unidentified 15-year-old were killed near to the Gaza border where Israeli troops opened fire on protesters on Friday, killing seven.
Meanwhile, 22-year-old Palestinian Ahmed Qali, who was shot by Israeli police on Friday, died of his injuries on Saturday, The Palestine Red Crescent said he was shot by police in Shuafat refugee camp.
It came as the Jordanian parliament attacked Israel’s actions.
“The Israeli enemy, sapping the rights of the Palestinians on their own lands and over their holy places, is exercising state terrorism before the eyes of the whole world,” it said.
Jordan, one of only two Arab countries, along with Egypt, to have a peace treaty with Israel condemned “the crimes committed by Israeli forces in the West Bank and Gaza”.
The four youths shot dead on Saturday were among 22 Palestinians who have been killed by Israelis since October 1.
Four Israelis have died.
Israeli police claimed that the 16-year-old Palestinian killed on Saturday had stabbed two ultraorthodox Jews, while the 19-year-old had stabbed two officers.
A third officer was caught in gunfire from his comrades as they were trying to shoot the youth, and was seriously wounded.
On Friday, a 17-year-old Jew in the southern Israeli city of Dimona wounded four Palestinians with a knife. He told police he carried out the attack because he believed “all Arabs are terrorists”.
Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu quickly condemned the attack.
Gaza militants on Saturday fired a rocket into southern Israel in response to Friday’s shootings. It caused no damage and there was no immediate claim of responsibility.
Rioting has shaken annexed East Jerusalem and the occupied West Bank, with police using live ammunition, rubber bullets, tear gas and stun grenades on demonstrators, who have retaliated by throwing stones.
The Gaza Strip had been mainly calm amid the unrest elsewhere until Friday’s clashes east of Gaza City and Khan Younis, in which seven Palestinians were killed and another 145 wounded.
It was the worst 24 hours of violence in Gaza since last summer’s war with Israel, which killed more than 2,200 and left 100,000 homeless.
The Israeli army claimed there had been “violent attempts to storm the border fence” and that “1,000 rioters infiltrated the buffer zone”, before it opened fire on the crowds.
Israeli security forces have arrested about 400 Palestinians since the October 1 outbreak of violence in the West Bank and East Jerusalem, the Palestinian Prisoner Club said on Saturday.
About half of them were aged between 14 and 20, the group said.
Hamas’s chief in Gaza, Ismail Haniyeh, on Friday called the latest wave of violence between Israelis and Palestinians an intifada and urged further protests.
Hamas runs Gaza, while the Fatah movement of Palestinian president Mahmoud Abbas is based in the West Bank.
“It’s not important whether we call it an intifada or a popular uprising,” said Fatah official Mahmud Al Alul. “What’s important is that the people and all the movements are united on the ground.”
Mr Abbas has spoken out against violence and in favour of “peaceful, popular resistance”, but many Palestinian youths are frustrated with his leadership and Israel’s government.
Israeli police have been struggling to prevent demonstrations among the country’s Arab population from deteriorating into widespread violence.
In the northern coastal city of Netanya, Israeli police also detained five Israelis who, during a clash with Palestinians from the nearby town of Taibe on Thursday, chanted “Death to Arabs”.
The US state department said it regarded attacks on Israelis by Palestinians as “acts of terror”, but spokesman John Kirby would not be drawn on whether Friday’s stabbing attack on the four Palestinians by the Jewish teenager was also terrorism.
* Agence France-Presse, Associated Press
