Palestinian stabs 2 at checkpoint near Jerusalem, Israeli police say

JERUSALEM (AP): Israeli police say a Palestinian stabbed and wounded two people at a checkpoint near Jerusalem before being shot Wednesday.

Israel’s Magen David Adom rescue service said the two people who were stabbed were in “mild to moderate condition.” Israeli police said the two people who were stabbed were members of the security forces, without elaborating. An Associated Press reporter saw the body of the attacker.

Violence has surged in the occupied West Bank since Hamas’ Oct. 7 attack triggered the war in Gaza. At least 427 Palestinians have been killed there, mostly during confrontations with Israeli forces, according to the Palestinian Health Ministry. Israeli-Palestinian tensions often soar during the Muslim holy month of Ramadan, which began Sunday, over access to a major holy site in Jerusalem.

Israel captured the West Bank and Gaza, as well as east Jerusalem, in the 1967 Mideast war. The Palestinians want all three territories for their future state.

Overnight clashes with Israeli forces leave at least 3 Palestinians dead

Israeli forces killed at least three Palestinians in two separate clashes overnight, including 13-year-old Rami Hamdan Al-Halhuli, who had hurled fireworks at the paramilitary Border Police during a violent protest. The Palestinian Authority said he was shot dead late Tuesday in the Shuafat refugee camp, a poor neighborhood on the outskirts of Jerusalem.

Israeli police say a member of the paramilitary Border Police fired “a single shot” toward a suspect who aimed fireworks in their direction during confrontations in Shuafat. It says the suspect was “apprehended, arrested and transferred for medical treatment.”

The Border Police also said they opened fire at five Palestinians who were hurling firebombs at vehicles on a highway near Jerusalem late Tuesday. It says they were arrested and transferred for medical treatment.

The Palestinian Health Ministry says Israeli forces killed two Palestinians, ages 16 and 23, and wounded three in the village of Al-Jib, near Jerusalem. It says they were brought to a hospital in the nearby city of Ramallah, where the Palestinian Authority is headquartered.

The two sides appeared to be describing the same incident. Police could not immediately be reached for comment.

At least 427 Palestinians have been killed in the West Bank since the start of the war, according to the Palestinian Health Ministry, mainly during confrontations with Israeli forces.

6 trucks carry aid into Gaza from the north for the first time since war erupted

The Israeli military said an aid convoy has for the first time entered the Gaza Strip through a crossing in the war-ravaged northern half of the territory.

Six trucks entered Gaza late Tuesday through a gate in the border fence, carrying goods from the World Food Program, the military said. It described the delivery as a test run and said the Israeli government would review the results.

Israel alleges that Hamas is commandeering aid. At the same time, Israel is under growing international pressure to ease restrictions on aid entering Gaza, particularly the northern half of the territory. Up to now, aid convoys entered Gaza from its southern end and had to make their way through areas of fighting and large, desperate crowds of Palestinians.

On Tuesday, the European Union’s foreign policy chief said Israel is using starvation as a weapon of war and accused it of blocking overland routes that are the best way to get food to hundreds of thousands of Palestinians facing famine.

The United States and other countries have resorted to workarounds, such as air drops and setting up a sea route, but aid officials say land deliveries remain the most efficient.