A Palestinian teenager has been shot dead in the West Bank and four Israelis have been stabbed as violence mounted following an air strike that killed a pregnant woman and toddler in Gaza.
Israeli forces on Sunday shot dead the teenager, identified by the Palestinian health ministry as Ahmad Sharake, 13, during clashes near the West Bank city of Ramallah.
Medics said dozens of Palestinians were shot and wounded in other clashes across the West Bank.
Within hours of Sharake's killing, four Jews were stabbed and wounded in northern Israel, one of them seriously, by an Arab Israeli who rammed them with his car and then lunged at them.
And with unrest threatening to spiral into a full-scale intifada, or uprising, a retaliatory Israeli air strike in Gaza overnight killed a pregnant Palestinian woman and her toddler.
The violence came on top of more than 10 days of clashes between Israeli forces and Palestinians in the occupied West Bank and annexed east Jerusalem, as well as a series of Palestinian stabbings of Jews.
Gaza was only drawn into the violence on Friday, with clashes along the border since leaving nine Palestinians dead from Israeli fire.
Two rockets fired at Israel, one of which hit an open field and the other was intercepted, prompted Israel to carry out an air strike overnight Saturday targeting arms manufacturing facilities of the Islamist movement Hamas.
The Israeli strike demolished a house in the northern Gaza area of Zeitun, killing Nur Hassan, 30, and her two-year-old daughter Rahaf.
Amid fury over the killings, a spokesman for Hamas which controls the coastal enclave said "this shows the occupation's desire to escalate".
"We warn the occupation against continuing this foolishness," said Sami Abu Zuhri.
On Sunday, six Palestinians were wounded in clashes with Israeli forces in central and northern Gaza.
A military spokeswoman told AFP that soldiers opened fire after hundreds of Palestinians hurled rocks and tried to rupture the border fence with burning tyres.
The Hamas chief in Gaza, Ismail Haniya, has already branded the spiralling violence between Israel and the Palestinians an intifada and called for further unrest.
Sunday's stabbings near Gan Shmuel kibbutz in northern Israel left a 19-year-old woman in serious condition, as well as moderately wounding a girl, 14, and lightly wounding two men aged 20 and 45.
The attack was the 15th stabbing of Israelis since October 3.
In a revenge stabbing, a 17-year-old Jew in the southern Israeli city of Dimona wounded two Palestinians and two Arab Israelis on Friday.
Earlier Sunday, Israeli security forces said they foiled a major attack when an explosion seriously wounded a Palestinian woman and lightly injured an Israeli policeman at a West Bank checkpoint near Maale Adumim settlement.
After a policeman told 31-year-old Israa Jaabis to stop, she shouted "Allah Akbar" (God is greatest) and blew up a gas cylinder in her car, security forces said.
Rioting has seen Palestinians throwing stones and firebombs at Israeli forces throughout the West Bank, who have responded with live fire, rubber bullets, tear gas and stun grenades.
Near Nablus to the north, 55 Palestinians were wounded by Israeli army live fire, medics said.
Heavy clashes also erupted in Beit Umar, southern West Bank, where a Palestinian killed in clashes was buried Sunday, with medics saying eight people were wounded by rubber bullets and four by live fire.
AFP
