Israel-Palestinian violence: Israeli killed in Beersheva bus station attack

Israeli police said the attacker, thought to be Palestinian, was killed.

Eight Israelis have died in attacks by lone Palestinians this month. More than 40 Palestinians, including several attackers, have been killed.

The upsurge began amid tensions at a flashpoint holy site in East Jerusalem.

Israeli security forces have imposed tighter restrictions in Jerusalem and the West Bank, and there have been clashes with Palestinian protesters.

Israel has begun erecting a 5m (16ft) high concrete barrier between the Palestinian district of Jabal Mukaber in East Jerusalem and the neighbouring Jewish Armon Hanatziv.

Israeli officials in Jerusalem insisted the wall was a temporary measure in an area "where there is a history of rock and [petrol bomb] Molotov cocktail throwing at Jewish homes and vehicles".

US Secretary of State John Kerry is to meet Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and, separately, Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas, this week in a bid to help restore calm.

The attack on the Central Bus Station in Beersheva came on Sunday evening.

"One armed terrorist entered the central bus station and shot at a soldier and killed him," a local police chief, Yoram Levi, was quoted by Haaretz as saying.

"He continued his shooting spree, took the soldier's gun and continued shooting in the central bus station.

"Forces in the area responded quickly, he managed to escape the central bus station but ran into forces, was shot and killed. In his belongings we found a knife and a pistol with ammunition."

Initial reports said there had been a second attacker, who was critically wounded, but he is now believed to be an Eritrean migrant. Video footage showed people kicking him and spitting at him as he lay in a pool of blood on the floor.

The city's Soroka Hospital said it was treating 10 shooting victims - two who arrived in a critical condition, two with serious wounds and the rest with moderate to light wounds.

Among the injured, all said to be in their 20s, were at least four police officers.

This attack will have particularly shocked Israelis as it came not in the Israeli-occupied Palestinian territory of the West Bank but deep inside Israel itself, the BBC's Middle East correspondent Kevin Connolly points out.

Earlier on Sunday, the Israeli military removed Jewish worshippers it said had illegally entered a religious site in the occupied West Bank.

Thirty Israelis arrived at Joseph's Tomb in the city of Nablus and were assaulted by Palestinians before being handed over to Israeli forces by Palestinian police, reports say.

What is happening between Israelis and Palestinians?

There has been a spate of stabbings of Israelis - several of them fatal - by Palestinians since early October, and one apparent revenge stabbing by an Israeli. The attackers have struck in Jerusalem and central and northern Israel, and in the occupied West Bank. Israel has tightened security and its security forces have clashed with rioting Palestinians, leading to deaths on the Palestinian side. The violence has also spread to the border with Gaza.

What's behind the latest unrest?

After a period of relative quiet, violence between the two communities has spiralled since clashes erupted at a flashpoint Jerusalem holy site in mid-September. It was fuelled by rumours among Palestinians that Israel was attempting to alter a long-standing religious arrangement governing the site. Israel repeatedly dismissed the rumours as incitement. Soon afterwards, two Israelis were shot dead by Palestinians in the West Bank and the stabbing attacks began. Both Israel and the Palestinian authorities have accused one another of doing nothing to protect each other's communities.

Is this a new Palestinian intifada, or uprising?

There have been two organised uprisings by Palestinians against Israeli occupation, in the 1980s and early 2000s. With peace talks moribund, some observers have questioned whether we are now seeing a third. The stabbing attacks seem to be opportunistic and although they have been praised by militant groups, Palestinian leader Mahmoud Abbas has said Palestinians are not interested in a further escalation.

(BBC)