5 killed in Tel Aviv, West Bank clashes

At least five people have been killed in occupied Palestinian territories amid escalating tensions between Israelis and Palestinians. 

An alleged stabbing attack left two Israelis dead and two others wounded in an office building on Ben Tsavi street in southern Tel Aviv on Thursday. 

Israeli Police spokeswoman Luba Samri said a 20-year-old Israeli died at the scene and a second man, aged around 50, died from his wounds after being taken to a hospital.

Meanwhile, a Palestinian suspect, who was injured in Thursday’s incident, was arrested. Israeli police said the suspect was a 24-year-old from the town of Dura, located 11 kilometers (6.8 miles) southwest of the West bank city of al-Khalil (Hebron).

Some Israeli media reported that the attack took place around a room used as a synagogue in the office building.

Later in the day, three people were killed and a nearly ten more injured in the occupied West Bank. According to Israeli police, a Palestinian opened fire on an Israeli vehicle from his car near the illegal Gush Etzion settlement bloc. The attacker also rammed his car into a group of pedestrians. An Israeli, a Palestinian, and an 18-year-old US national lost their lives in the incident. The assailant was shot, but his condition was unclear.

In another development on Thursday, a 20-year-old Palestinian man died of his wounds sustained during clashes with Israeli forces on November 11. Mahmoud Said Ulayyan, from the Palestinian town of Anata, was a senior nursing student at the Modern College in the West Bank city of Ramallah.

Tensions in the occupied Palestinian territories have dramatically escalated since the Israeli regime’s imposition of restrictions in August on the entry of Palestinian worshipers to the al-Aqsa Mosque compound in East al-Quds (Jerusalem).

Palestinians say the Tel Aviv seeks to change the status quo of al-Aqsa. They are also angry at Israeli extremists, who escorted by army forces, have stepped up their raids on the sensitive site, which is Islam’s third holiest site after Masjid al-Haram in Mecca and Masjid al-Nabawi in Medina.

Last month, senior Hamas leader, Ismail Haniyeh, called the recent spate of clashes between Palestinians and Israeli forces in the occupied West Bank and East al-Quds, an Intifada (uprising) against the Tel Aviv regime.

Around 90 Palestinians and nearly 20 Israelis have been killed in the recent wave of violence since the start of October.

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