Israeli police say that a security guard has been stabbed near Jerusalem’s central bus station.
Police spokesman Micky Rosenfeld says the guard was seriously wounded Sunday and his attacker arrested. The Magen David Adom medical service says a 30-year-old male suffered a stabbing wound in his upper body.
The incident appeared to be the first attack since President Donald Trump’s recognition of Jerusalem as Israel’s capital. The announcement set off protests and demonstration across the West Bank, east Jerusalem and the Gaza Strip, and demonstrations around the world.
In more than two years of intermittent attacks, Palestinians have killed more than 50 Israelis, two visiting Americans and a British tourist in stabbings, shootings and car-ramming attacks. Israeli forces have killed more than 260 Palestinians in that time, mostly attackers
Lebanese security forces broke up a protest outside the heavily-guarded U.S. Embassy after demonstrators pelted them with stones.
The protesters gathered early Sunday hundreds of meters (yards) outside the embassy to reject the U.S. recognition of Jerusalem as the capital of Israel. After a rowdy start, the protest drew several hundred people and became more peaceful, with demonstrators chanting and singing.
The clashes resumed in the afternoon, with security forces chasing protesters, arresting a handful of them and lobbing tear gas canisters.
Lebanon is home to 450,000 Palestinian refugees, nearly 10 percent of the population.
The protesters gathered hundreds of meters (yards) away from the embassy on Sunday, where they burned an effigy of Trump, U.S. and Israeli flags, as well as piles of garbage, sending plumes of smoke into the air. As they hurled stones, security forces responded with tear gas and water cannons.
The U.S. decision has ignited protests across the Middle East, where it is widely seen as a blatantly pro-Israel move that threatens the decades-old peace process.
Lebanon is home to 450,000 Palestinian refugees, nearly 10 percent of the population.
Israel’s prime minister says he is ready to defend President Donald Trump’s recognition of Jerusalem as Israel’s capital against its European critics.
Upon leaving on a diplomatic mission to Paris and Brussels late Saturday, Netanyahu said he “will present Israel’s truth without fear and with head held high.”
Trump’s announcement sparked protests across the region. It also triggered denunciations from around the world, even from close allies like France, that suggested he had needlessly stirred more conflict in an already volatile region.
An international consensus has long held that Jerusalem’s final status should be determined through negotiations. Israel claims the entire city as its unified capital, while the Palestinians want east Jerusalem, captured by Israel in 1967, to be the capital of their future state.