West Bank tensions rise after Jewish settlers stabbed

GAZA - Israel is to build hundreds of new homes in an illegal settlement in the occupied West Bank where a Palestinian stabbed three Jewish settlers, one fatally, Israeli Defence Minister Avigdor Lieberman said Friday.

"The best answer to terrorism is the expansion of settlements," Lieberman wrote on Twitter, announcing 400 new housing units in the illegal Adam settlement north of occupied Jerusalem a day after the deadly stabbing.

The teenage attacker snuck into the settlement on Thursday evening by climbing a wall, the Israeli army said.

He stabbed three settlers seemingly at random before being shot dead.

The army named the man who died as Yotam Ovadia, 31, with Israeli media saying he had two young children.

A 58-year-old victim was said to be seriously wounded but stable. The third victim was lightly wounded.

Officials said the Palestinian had been shot by an Israeli who was passing at the time and witnessed the incident.

The attacker was later identified by official Palestinian media as Mohammed Dar Youssef, 17, from the village of Kobar.

The army said Friday it had raided the village, questioned a number of his family members and suspended their work permits.

During the raid on Friday morning, clashes broke out between young Palestinians and occupation soldiers firing tear gas.

"The rioters hurled large rocks and firebombs and rolled burning tires at (Israeli) troops, who responded with riot dispersal means," an army statement said.

The clashes were over by mid-morning Friday, though the occupation forces had established a checkpoint at the edge of the village.

Official Palestinian news agency Wafa said three people were arrested.

The army added it was "reinforcing the defense" of Adam and other illegal settlements.

US decries 'barbaric attack'

All Israeli settlement construction in the occupied West Bank is considered illegal by the international community.

Israel rejects the widely-held view that settlement expansion is one of the greatest obstacles to peace with the Palestinians.

Attacks against Israelis in the West Bank are supported by many Palestinians as pushing back against Israeli colonialism and settlement growth.

US President Donald Trump's special envoy Jason Greenblatt called on Palestinian president Mahmud Abbas, whose Fatah movement leads the government in the West Bank, to condemn the attack.

"Yet another barbaric attack tonight. When will President Abbas and Palestinian leaders condemn the violence?" he wrote on Twitter.

There was no response from Abbas's administration, which has cut ties to Trump's government over its close relations with Israel's government, seen as the most right-wing and nationalistic Israeli government ever.

Lone Palestinians have carried out multiple deadly stabbings and car-rammings against Israelis in recent years in the West Bank, Jerusalem and elsewhere.

The attack came after a period of relative calm in the West Bank.

The last stabbing in a settlement was in April, when a Palestinian tried to stab a settler near a petrol station in an industrial area connected to the illegal Maale Adumim settlement east of Jerusalem.

Pay a high price

In Gaza, however, there has been recurrent violence between the Israeli army and Palestinian protesters in the Gaza Strip in which at least 154 Palestinians have been killed since late March.

Palestinian Islamist movement Hamas, which rules Gaza, promised revenge after Israeli strikes on the coastal enclave killed three of its members.

Israel said the artillery fire late Wednesday was in retaliation for shots fired at troops along the border that injured one soldier.

In a statement late Thursday, Hamas praised the "courageous operation" in the West Bank without claiming responsibility for it.

"The West Bank is ready and able to avenge the blood of the martyrs," it said.

"The enemy shall pay a high price in blood for the crime which it commits daily against the rights of our people and our fighters," said the al-Qassam Brigades, the armed wing of Hamas.

The flare-up comes five days after the United Nations and Egypt brokered a deal to halt a July 20 surge in violence that claimed the lives of four Palestinians and an Israeli soldier -- the first killed in the area since the last war in Gaza in 2014.

On Tuesday, Israel partially reopened its only goods crossing with the Gaza Strip, after a two-week closure prompted by border tensions and incendiary kites had sparked fears of a severe fuel shortage in the blockaded Palestinian enclave.

Tensions along the Gaza border increased in late March when Palestinians launched a mass protest movement.

At least 149 Palestinians have been killed in Gaza by Israeli fire since March 30.

Israel says its blockade is necessary to keep Hamas from obtaining weapons or materials that could be used for military purposes.

But UN officials and rights groups have repeatedly called for the blockade to be lifted, citing worsening humanitarian conditions in the enclave, home to two million people.