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Palestinian fatally stabbed two people in a Tel Aviv office building and three
other people were killed in an attack in the occupied West Bank on Thursday,
Israeli police and the army said.
In the
latest attack near the Gush Etzion settlement bloc in the West Bank, a police
commander said a Palestinian drove along the shoulder of the main road and shot
at crawling traffic, killing three people and wounding others.
Police
spokesman Micky Rosenfeld said the attacker's car stopped when it hit another
vehicle and the driver was seized. He said an American citizen was one of three
people killed. The others were a Palestinian and an Israeli.
At least
seven other people were wounded, a medical source said. The attack brought to
18 the number of Israelis and others who have died, along with 80 Palestinians,
in a wave of violence over the past seven weeks.
The
American was identified as Ezra Schwartz, 18, who was studying in Israel,
according to a Facebook post by the American Jewish Committee. CBS's Boston
affiliate said Schwartz was from Sharon, Massachusetts.
In the
Tel Aviv attack, a police spokeswoman said the assailant who had attacked
worshippers gathered for afternoon prayers in a shop that sells Jewish
religious items in the building was apprehended and a third person was wounded.
Police
say 49 of the 80 Palestinians killed in recent weeks died at the scene of
attacks on Israelis and most of the rest died in violent protests in the
occupied West Bank and near the Gaza border.
Palestinian
allegations that Israel was trying to alter the religious status quo at a
Jerusalem holy site, known to Muslims as the Noble Sanctuary, where al -Aqsa
mosque stands, and to Jews as Temple Mount, have partly fueled the violence.
Earlier
on Thursday, three 15-year-old Palestinian girls attempted to infiltrate an
Israeli military post in the West Bank, the military said.
Soldiers
apprehended them, and the military said three knives were found in their
possession.
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