April 7, 2013

(JTA) – Palestinian riots continued over the weekend in several areas of the West Bank in the wake of the cancer death of a Palestinian prisoner.

Palestinians clashed with Israel Defense Forces soldiers Saturday in the Gush Etzion area, also throwing rocks and firebombs at local Jewish settlements.

Also on Saturday, Israeli soldiers prevented Palestinians from igniting agricultural fields near the northern West Bank community of Yitzhar.

A soldier was hit and injured in the hand near the West Bank village of Bayt Liqya, located approximately five miles northwest of Jerusalem, where troops faced dozens of rioting men after Friday mosque prayers, Army Radio reported.

Similar riots erupted in Hebron and the Al Arub village north of the West Bank city. In the eastern Jerusalem neighborhood of Isawiya, dozens of Palestinians staged a riot amid burning tires. Three men were arrested there, the radio station reported.

On April 4, thousands attended in Hebron the funeral of Maisara Abu Hamdiyeh — a 64-year-old Hamas terrorist who died on April 2 from cancer in an Israeli hospital while serving a life sentence in an Israeli prison for recruiting another terrorist to carry out an attack on a Jerusalem café. The rioting began following the prisoner’s death.

The Palestinian Authority has blamed Israel for his death. Israel’s Health Ministry reported that the findings of an autopsy on his body revealed the cause of death as complications due to cancer.
 

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