3 Palestinian students wounded in renewed clashes with Israeli forces

Fresh clashes broke out on Monday between dozens of Palestinians and Israeli security forces in the West Bank and east Jerusalem, leaving three Palestinian students wounded.

The Palestinians were protesting against the Israeli killing of a young man in east Jerusalem overnight.

An Israeli police force shot dead a 21-year-old Palestinian man in northern Jerusalem after he allegedly stabbed two Israelis and moderately wounded them, the Palestinian Health Ministry in the West Bank said in a statement.

Israeli authorities held the young man's body and refused to hand it over to his family, it added.

In Monday's clashes, Israeli forces fired tear gas and rubber bullets at students outside the Palestine Technical University in the northern West Bank town of Tulkarem, wounding three of them, medical sources said.

Similar clashes broke out between dozens of Palestinian stone-throwers and Israeli forces in the southern West Bank city of Hebron, according to witnesses.

The confrontations erupted after the Israeli army sealed off the main road to traffic in the city, they said.

The closure of the main road prevented store keepers and owners to open their shops, residents said.

However, the road was re-opened for around 500 Israeli settlers who live in the old city of Hebron, they said.

In east Jerusalem, clashes broke out at Al-Aqsa Mosque compound after Israeli police allowed Jewish groups into the compound, according to witnesses in the old city.

Israeli police arrested one Palestinian and wounded several worshippers with tear gas, the witnesses said.

A wave of violence between Israel and the Palestinians broke out in early October in the West Bank and east Jerusalem, leaving 115 Palestinians dead and hundreds injured. Twenty Israelis were killed in a series of shooting and stabbing attacks carried out by Palestinians.

The violence was sparked amid strife over the flashpoint holy site of Al-Aqsa Mosque compound in east Jerusalem, holy to both Jews and Muslims amid dim prospects of a peace treaty based on the two-state solution.

Meanwhile, Palestinian security sources said Israeli army forces arrested overnight 22 Palestinians after storming Palestinian homes in several towns and villages in the West Bank. Israel radio said the Palestinians were wanted by the Israeli security forces.

Eassa Qaraqe'a, chairman of the Palestinian corporation for prisoners, said that since the current wave of tension in the Palestinians territories began, Israeli forces have so far arrested 2,500 Palestinians.

In the Gaza Strip, Israeli war jets struck a training facility in southern Gaza City but caused no casualties, according to security officials of Hamas, which rules the Strip.

Israel Public Radio said the pre-dawn airstrike on the Hamas training facility came in response to earlier shooting attack by unknown militants on Israeli army vehicles patrolling the border with Gaza two days ago.

The last Israeli airstrike on Gaza was on Nov. 23, when Israeli war jets struck a training facilities that belong to Gaza Hamas-led militants in response to rocket fire into Israel.

Unidentified militants fire rockets from time to time into Israel in violation of a truce reached between the two sides last year.

Sources: MENA