3 cops struck by car on Mt. of Olives in suspected attack
Three Israeli police officers were injured Saturday evening when struck by a car on the Mount of Olives in East Jerusalem in what authorities suspect may have been a deliberate attack.Palestinian stabs Israeli soldier in Hebron, is shot dead
Magen David Adom paramedics said they treated a 20-year-old woman for moderate injuries, and a man and woman for minor injuries sustained after being struck by the vehicle. The three were taken to Shaare Zedek Medical Center for treatment.
Police fired on the vehicle as it sped away. It was later found abandoned, and security forces were searching for the driver.
Emergency responders were forced to flee the scene after rocks and Molotov cocktails were thrown at them.
Jerusalem Mayor Nir Barkat’s car was also reportedly pelted by stones as he drove to the scene.
A Palestinian man stabbed an Israeli Border Police officer in the West Bank city of Hebron Saturday, inflicting moderate injuries. The alleged attacker, aged 20, was shot and wounded, and died of his injuries on the way to a hospital in Jerusalem.Israel reportedly hits Hezbollah, Assad targets in Syria
Police said the officer, 19, was stabbed multiple times in the head, neck and chest at an army checkpoint near Hebron’s Tomb of the Patriarchs. A second soldier shot the attacker.
Palestinian media named the suspected attacker as Assad al-Salayma. An AFP correspondent said Israeli soldiers were preventing Palestinians gaining access to the area where the Tomb of the Patriarchs, known to Muslims as the Ibrahimi Mosque, is located.
Magen David Adom paramedics treated the injured soldier and evacuated him to Jerusalem’s Shaare Tzedek Hospital in stable but moderate condition, Ynet reported.
Saturday afternoon’s incident was the second of its kind within less than 24 hours in which Palestinian men attacked Israeli security personnel in the West Bank and were killed.
Israel reportedly hit several targets belonging to Hezbollah and the Syrian army in a series of air attacks Saturday morning in the Kalamun area on the border between Syria and Lebanon.Young Arabs Agree: Israel Isn’t Arab World’s Major Problem
According to a report in the Saudi-owned al-Arabiya, a first Israeli Air Force strike took place Wednesday, allegedly targeting two sites believed to have been Syrian army missile depots.
On Saturday, according to a report in al-Jazeera, the Syrian targets were divisions 155 and 65 of the Assad army, in charge of “strategic weapons.” Al-Arabiya reported that the targets were Scud missile depots housed in the military bases.
Several explosions were heard in the areas of Kteife, Yabrud and a village in Kalamun, according to al-Jazeera on Saturday.
The area is known as a Syrian military site housing weapons depots and installations.
There was no official word from Hezbollah or the Syrian government on the alleged attacks.
One of the most positive strategic developments for Israel of the past few years has been its marked improvement in relations with significant parts of the Arab world. Three years ago, for instance, the most cockeyed optimist wouldn’t have predicted a letter like Israel received this week from a senior official of the Free Syrian Army, who congratulated it on its 67th anniversary and voiced hope that next year, Israel’s Independence Day would be celebrated at an Israeli embassy in Damascus.
Yet many analysts have cautioned that even if Arab leaders were quietly cooperating with Israel for reasons of realpolitik, anti-Israel hostility in the “Arab street” hadn’t abated. So a new poll showing that this, too, is changing came as a lovely Independence Day gift.
The ASDA’A Burson-Marsteller Arab Youth Survey, which has been conducted annually for the last seven years, polls 3,500 Arabs aged 18 to 24 from 16 Arab countries in face-to-face interviews. One of the standard questions is “What do you believe is the biggest obstacle facing the Middle East?”
This year, defying a long tradition of blaming all the Arab world’s problems on Israel, only 23 percent of respondents cited the Israeli-Palestinian conflict as the region’s main obstacle. In fact, the conflict came in fourth, trailing ISIS (37 percent), terrorism (32 percent) and unemployment (29 percent). Given that respondents were evidently allowed to choose more than one of the 15 options (the total adds up to 235 percent rather than 100), it’s even more noteworthy that only 23 percent thought the conflict worth mentioning.