Israel-Palestine Conflict: Jerusalem attacks raise tensions

The Israeli military was sending more troops into the occupied West Bank, a day after a Palestinian gunman shot dead seven people on the outskirts of Jerusalem and another shooting attack in the city yesterday wounded two people.

The attacks took place towards the end of a month of growing confrontation and follow an Israeli raid in the West Bank that killed nine Palestinians, including seven gunmen, and cross-border fire between Israel and Gaza.

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's new cabinet, which includes hardline nationalist parties that have called for stronger action against Palestinians and oppose Palestinian statehood, was due to meet later yesterday.

Friday's attack outside a synagogue was the deadliest in the city area since 2008. The gunman, Khaire Alkam, was a 21-year-old Palestinian resident of East Jerusalem, according to police.

Alkam's father told Reuters his son had no links to any Palestinian militant groups. He struck in an area that Israel annexed to Jerusalem after the 1967 war, a move not recognised internationally.

Police said he had tried to flee by car but was chased by officers and shot dead. Forty-two suspects, including members of the gunman's family, had been arrested, police said.

Yesterday, police said a 13-year-old boy from East Jerusalem opened fire at a group of passers-by, wounding two people, before he was shot and wounded by one of them.

That incident took place around Silwan, a Palestinian neighbourhood in East Jerusalem that lies below the Old City walls.

The attacks underlined the potential for an escalation in violence after months of clashes in the West Bank culminating in a raid in Jenin on Thursday that killed at least nine Palestinians, the deadliest such raid in years.

"Following an IDF (Israeli Defence Forces) situational assessment, it was decided to reinforce the Judea and Samaria (West Bank) Division with an additional battalion," the military said.

Police said the gunman in the Friday attack arrived at 8:15pm and opened fire with a handgun, hitting a number of people before he was killed by police.

Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas made no mention of the shootings in a statement published by the official Palestinian agency WAFA, and blamed Israel for the escalation in violence.

Abbas's Palestinian Authority, which has limited governing powers in the West Bank, suspended security cooperation arrangements with Israel after the deadly Jenin raid.

Friday's shooting, on International Holocaust Remembrance Day, was condemned by the White House and UN Secretary General Antonio Guterres, who urged "utmost restraint". The European Union and Russia also urged for restraint. It came days before a planned visit by US Secretary of State Antony Blinken to Israel and the West Bank.