Israeli forces have shot and nabbed a Palestinian man over an alleged stabbing attack in the city of Ra’anana north of Tel Aviv.
According to Israeli police spokesperson Luba al-Samri, the 20-year-old Palestinian was nabbed after allegedly stabbing and seriously injuring an Israeli man. Two others were claimed to have suffered light injuries.
Checkpoints were reportedly set up on the main roads leading into and out of the city.
The incident came a day after Israeli forces killed three Palestinians and injured dozens of others amid tensions in the occupied West Bank and the blockaded Gaza Strip.
Palestinian mourners on Saturday held funerals for two of the dead in the town of Sinjil in the West Bank and the city of Khan Younis in southern Gaza.
Israeli forces on December 17 shot and killed 15-year-old Abdullah Hussein Nasasra at the Huwwara military checkpoint near the West Bank city of Nablus, accusing the teenager of attempting to stab an Israeli soldier.
The UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs has voiced concern over the excessive use of force and “extrajudicial killing” of Palestinians by Israeli forces. The body says that circumstances surrounding several of the Palestinian deaths over the past weeks remain disputed.
Tensions have been simmering in the occupied territories since the Israeli regime’s imposition of restrictions in August on the entry of Palestinian worshipers into the al-Aqsa Mosque compound in East al-Quds (Jerusalem).
Palestinians are angry at increasing violence by Israeli settlers at the al-Aqsa Mosque compound and their attacks on Palestinian properties, saying the Tel Aviv regime seeks to change the status quo of the compound.
On December 16, Israeli rights group B’Tselem also censured the regime’s military for using “excessive and unwarranted” force in killing Palestinians, saying this was tantamount to “summary execution.”
Nearly 130 Palestinians have been killed in the recent escalation of violence since the start of October.