Israel puts WB village on lockdown, rescinds permits following alleged stabbing

Israeli military forces have put a village in the central part of the occupied West Bank on complete lockdown in the wake of an alleged stabbing attack, which left a female Israeli border police officer dead.

Palestinian sources, speaking on condition of anonymity, said Saturday that Israeli forces have surrounded the village of Dayr Abu Mash’al, located 24 kilometers west of Ramallah.

Israeli police spokesperson Luba al-Samri also said in a statement that Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu had approved a decision to rescind all permits issued for Palestinians during the Muslim fasting month of Ramadan and Eid al-Fitr, which marks its end.

The developments came after 19-year-old Bara Ibrahim Muhammad Saleh, Adel Hassan Ahmad Anakush, 18, and Osama Ahmad Mustafa Atta, 19, purportedly wounded 23-year-old Staff Sergeant Major Hadas Malka outside the Damascus Gate entrance to the Old City of Jerusalem al-Quds on Friday evening. 

An unnamed Israeli police spokesperson said the three Palestinians were “shot and killed” following the attack.

Dayr Abu Mash’al is the hometown of the three slain Palestinians.

The Israeli police officer, who was in critical condition, was taken to the emergency care unit at nearby Hadassah University Medical Center. Hospital officials later pronounced her dead.

The Daesh terrorist group later claimed responsibility for the attack in a statement posted on its Amaq news agency. 

Hamas resistance movement, however, dismissed the allegation, stating that the trio was affiliated to the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine. 

“The sacrificial operation in Jerusalem al-Quds, which was carried out by three martyrs, confirms that the Palestinian Authority’s attempt to normalize relations with the Occupier is a failure. The Palestinian youth will continue to characterize the Occupation as its single enemy,” Hamas spokesperson Hazim Qassim wrote in a Facebook post.

Spokesman for Ramallah-based Fatah movement, Osama al-Qawasmi, denounced the killing of the three Palestinian teenagers as a “war crime by the Israeli occupation forces.”

The occupied Palestinian territories have witnessed new tensions ever since Israeli forces introduced restrictions on the entry of Palestinian worshipers into the al-Aqsa Mosque compound in East Jerusalem al-Quds in August 2015.

More than 300 Palestinians have lost their lives at the hands of Israeli forces in the ongoing tensions since the beginning of October 2015.

The Tel Aviv regime has tried to change the demographic makeup of Jerusalem al-Quds over the past decades by constructing settlements, destroying historical sites and expelling the local Palestinian population. Palestinians say the Israeli measures are aimed at paving the way for the Judaization of the city.

The al-Aqsa Mosque compound is a flashpoint Islamic site, which is also holy to Jews. The mosque is Islam’s third holiest site after Mecca and Medina in Saudi Arabia.

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