Israeli leaders said they would move aggressively to combat a wave of violence after the country was left shaken by Palestinian attacks that killed three people Tuesday.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu convened an emergency meeting of his security cabinet to discuss measures such as an increased military presence in Arab neighborhoods, additional police on public transport and threats of revocation of residency for Arabs in East Jerusalem.
Adjourning the meeting briefly to address the Israeli parliament, Mr. Netanyahu called on Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas to “stop lying and inciting” hatred among Palestinian youth against Israelis.
“Don’t turn murderers into heroes,” Mr. Netanyahu said. “We will not hesitate to use all means at our disposal to restore peace to the cities of Israel.”
The outcome of the security meeting wasn’t clear late Tuesday. Some local news organizations in Israel reported that more police and soldiers would be deployed to protect public transport and surround areas of East Jerusalem.
The proposed security moves came after a chilling morning in Israel as people were attacked by knife-wielding Palestinians and three Israelis were killed—one of the bloodiest days in weeks of violence.
Two Israelis died after two Palestinian men boarded a bus in the East Jerusalem neighborhood of Armon Hanatziv and began shooting and stabbing passengers, Israeli police said. One of the attackers was killed.
Another Israeli was killed when a man rammed his car into a bus stop in north-central Jerusalem and began attacking bystanders with a knife, police said. Besides the Jerusalem attacks, a 22-year-old Palestinian from Jerusalem stabbed an Israeli man at a bus stop in the city of Raanana in central Israel before being wrestled to the ground by civilians, said Israel authorities.
The Israeli was moderately wounded, and the attacker was taken into custody and hospitalized after he was beaten by residents.
Less than an hour later, a Palestinian youth stabbed and wounded four Israelis near a cafe in Raanana. A motorist stopped the assailant by hitting him with his car.
U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry condemned the killings on Tuesday. He has made separate telephone calls in recent days to Mr. Netanyahu and Palestinian Authority President Abbas, urging both leaders do all they could to stop the assaults.
The four episodes on Tuesday, the latest in a series of stabbing and shooting attacks by Palestinians against Israelis, have highlighted the security challenges confronting Mr. Netanyahu and his government.
The attacks appear uncoordinated, but some Israelis say Palestinian leaders are talking two different games to stoke the tension, encouraging young Palestinians via sermons and social media to carry out the assaults on the one hand and condemning attacks on the other.
“No one just wakes up in the morning and says let’s stab someone in the back,” said Gabriel Weimann, an expert of communications and social media at the University of Haifa and New York University’s Shanghai campus.
Seven Israelis have been killed and dozens wounded in a shooting, a stoning and stabbings since late last month.
At least 27 Palestinians been killed by Israeli gunfire, including 10 identified by Israel as attackers and the rest in clashes between stone-throwers and Israeli troops. Hundreds of Palestinians have been wounded in the confrontations.
On Sunday, Mr, Netanyahu ordered more than 1,000 border police to Jerusalem to meet the threat of unrest. Last month he gave officers greater leeway in firing at Palestinians throwing stones, who now face stiffer prison sentences.
The latest round of Palestinian-Israeli bloodshed began last month with clashes at Temple Mount, sacred to both Muslims and Jews, and quickly spread across Israel and into the West Bank and Gaza Strip, where protesters on Tuesday broke through a fence on the Israeli border.
Mr. Abbas earlier this month called for calm in the streets, but the continuing violence has underpinned the public’s disillusionment with the Palestinian Authority president and shown he has little control over some Palestinian leaders and the largely youthful attackers.
An aide to Mr. Abbas didn’t respond to requests to comment late Tuesday in response to Mr. Netanyahu’s remarks.
Some Palestinian officials have warned that demonstrations and attacks on Israelis go beyond the disputes over the Temple Mount and represent a wider disaffection among young Palestinians.
The Israeli military occupation of the Palestinian territories has fostered unemployment and limited economic opportunity, and spurred lone assailants to carry out attacks, they have said.
“I think these are indiscriminate acts by young people who have lost any shred of hope,” said Husam Zumlot, a senior aide to President Abbas.
Mohammed Dahlan, a member of the Palestine Liberation Organization, a coalition of Palestinian factions that includes the Fatah political party and represents Palestinian interests internationally, on Saturday said on his Facebook page that resistance to the Israeli occupation was a national duty.
“[The resistance] will not die,” Mr. Dahlan said, according to the Middle East Media Research Institute, a Washington D.C.-based nonprofit that monitors press activity. “And will not cease as long as there is an occupation.”
On Friday in Gaza, imam Sheikh Muhammad Sallah brandished a knife during a sermon and called on Palestinians in the West Bank to knife Israelis. Ismail Haniyeh, a senior leader of Hamas, the Palestinian Islamist movement that rules in the Gaza Strip also called for an uprising against Israel.
