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Israeli Security Forces Strengthened in Jerusalem
Hundreds of Israeli policemen and security forces have been deployed at main roads and key locations in Jerusalem Tuesday morning to prevent potential terror attacks, Israeli Army Radio reported.
The Israel Defense Forces has tightened the blockade on the West Bank and Israeli border police has also strengthened patrol along the 1967 Green Line, the Internet edition of Ha'aretz, a leading Israeli daily newspaper, reported.
The emergent measures were taken after a series of bomb attacks in Jerusalem as well as the injuries of six Israelis in four separate attacks on Monday.
Three border policemen were injured in a drive-by shooting Monday afternoon near Bet Hefer, along the Green Line in the vicinity of the West Bank City of Tul Karm. Two of them, including a policewoman, were wounded seriously.
An Israeli, who was stabbed near Damascus Gate of the Old City in East Jerusalem Monday afternoon, is now in serious condition at Hadassah Hospital.
Earlier Monday morning, an Israeli man was lightly injured by gunfire while driving in the West Bank and an Israeli girl was wounded by mortar fire in the Gaza Strip.
The police and the first-aid organization of Magen David Adom have been remaining on high alert after a series of bomb attacks in Jerusalem in recent days, though the accidents caused no serious injuries.
Jerusalem police chief Mickey Levy described recent incidents as attempts by Palestinian activists to drag Jerusalem into the wave of violence that has engulfed the Jewish state, reported Ha'aretz.
In response, the Israel Air Force fired Monday afternoon several missiles at the Palestinian police headquarters in Gaza, injuring seven policemen and destroying some buildings.
Six members of the al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigade, a faction of Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat's Fatah movement, were killed earlier Monday morning by Israeli tank shells.
All the clashes occurred after Israeli police stormed on Sunday into the al-Aqsa Mosque compound in East Jerusalem, Islam's third holiest site, and clashed with the Palestinians who threw stones at Jewish worshippers in protest at a symbolic ceremony of laying a cornerstone for what Israelis call a Third Temple by a right-wing Israeli religious group on Sunday morning.
Violence between the two sides is escalating though the U.S.- brokered ceasefire took effect on June 13.
More than 650 people, most of them Palestinians, have been killed in clashes between Israel and the Palestinians since last September.
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