Israeli-Palestinian conflict continues as diplomats try to end bloodshed

PanARMENIAN.Net - Stone-throwing Palestinians clashed with Israeli soldiers in the Israeli-occupied West Bank and in the Gaza Strip during "Day of Rage" protests on Friday, October 23 while diplomats tried to end more than three weeks of bloodshed, Reuters reports.

U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry said he was cautiously optimistic there was a way to defuse tensions after holding four hours of talks with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in Berlin on Thursday.

Israeli authorities also lifted restrictions on Friday that had banned men aged under 40 from using the flashpoint al-Aqsa mosque compound in Jerusalem's walled Old City - a move seen as a bid to ease Muslim anger.

Police said Friday prayers there ended quietly. But in the West Bank and Gaza, Palestinian medical officials said 45 people were wounded by gunfire, including a 13-year-old critically injured near Ramallah and three photographers near the Gaza border.

The Israeli military said it was unaware that journalists had been hurt and that soldiers had fired warning shots in the air before firing on leading instigators trying to breach the Gaza security fence.

Earlier, a 16-year-old Palestinian stabbed and wounded an Israeli soldier in the West Bank, before being shot and wounded by other troops, the Israeli military said.

One of the worst waves of street violence in years was triggered in part by Palestinian anger over what they see as Jewish encroachment on the compound, Islam's third holiest site and also revered by Jews as the location of two ancient temples.

Palestinians are also frustrated by the failure of numerous rounds of peace talks to secure them an independent state in East Jerusalem, the West Bank and Gaza, territories Israel captured in the 1967 Middle East war.

The last round of negotiations collapsed in 2014.

More than 50 Palestinians, half of them assailants, have been shot dead by Israelis at the scene of attacks or during protests in the West Bank and Gaza since October 1. Nine Israelis have been stabbed or shot dead by Palestinians.

Stabbings and shootings mostly have been carried out by "lone wolf" attackers, many of them teenagers.

Palestinian factions, including the militant group Hamas and the Fatah movement of Western-backed President Mahmoud Abbas, had called for Day of Rage rallies after Friday prayers, though protests were less intense than in previous weeks.