Arab-Israeli Shot Dead during Arrest Attempt
Police shot dead a young Arab-Israeli during an attempted arrest Saturday, threatening to inflame Palestinian anger as the top EU diplomat pushed for progress on the political front.
The dawn killing in Kfar Kana in northern Israel comes against a backdrop of soaring Israeli-Palestinian tensions in annexed east Jerusalem where there have been near-daily clashes in flashpoint neighbourhoods.
The 22-year-old intervened in the arrest of one of his relatives, threatening the officers with a knife, according to a police statement.
After firing warning shots, the police shot him and he died on the way to hospital, it said.
Dozens of angry youths later erected barricades and set fire to tyres on the outskirts of the village as police deployed reinforcements.
Arab Israelis, who account for about 20 percent of Israel's population, are the descendents of Palestinian Arabs who remained on their land when the Jewish state was established in 1948.
The shooting came after another night of clashes in east Jerusalem pitting youths throwing stones and firecrackers against police who used rubber bullets, stun grenades and tear gas.
The violence was particularly intense at the Shuafat refugee camp, a maze of alleys crammed with Palestinian homes along the separation barrier cutting off east Jerusalem from the occupied West Bank.
The spike in violence came after one of the camp's residents ploughed a car into pedestrians in Jerusalem on Wednesday, killing a policeman and injuring nine other people before he was shot dead.
On Friday, a young Israeli also died of injuries sustained in the attack -- the second of its kind in a fortnight.
Community officials say the wave of unrest is fuelled by a sense of hopelessness in east Jerusalem because of Israeli policies.
- EU warning -
The anger has been fuelled by Israel's settlement activities as well as efforts by far-right Jewish fringe groups to secure prayer rights at the Al-Aqsa compound which is holy to Jews as well as Muslims.
Speaking on her first official visit to Jerusalem, the European Union's new foreign affairs chief Federica Mogherini said there was a real "urgency" to pick up and advance the moribund peace process.
"The risk is that if we do not move forward on the political track, we will go back... again to violence," she told reporters.
But she also flagged up Israel's settlement building on lands the Palestinians want for a future state as an "obstacle" to a negotiated peace.
Shortly afterwards, Mogherini met Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu who gave a terse statement dismissing all criticism of his settlement policy.
"I reject the fictitious claim that the root of the continuous conflict is this or that settlement," he said.
"Jerusalem is our capital and as such is not a settlement."
Netanyahu ordered the security forces to either seal or demolish the homes of any Palestinian involved in anti-Israeli attacks, an official said Friday.
Mogherini was due to meet officials from the UN agency for Palestinian refugees in Gaza on Saturday.
She had also been scheduled to meet Palestinian prime minister Rami Hamdallah but he cancelled his trip there after a series of bombs Friday hit the homes and cars of Gaza-based officials with the Fatah movement.
Fatah, the party of Palestinian president Mahmud Abbas, laid the blame on the Islamist movement Hamas, the de facto rulers in Gaza, as a new row broke out between the rival Palestinian factions.
Hamas and Israel fought a 50-day war earlier this year which resulted in the deaths of 2,140 Palestinians and 73 Israelis, and destroyed swathes of the Gaza strip.
Hamas announced Friday it was forming a thousands-strong "popular army" in the devastated Gaza Strip in response to what it called "serious Israeli violations" at Al-Aqsa.
Frequent clashes between Palestinian protesters and Israeli police occur around the mosque compound.
Source: Agence France Presse
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