Occupied Jerusalem: While the world’s attention was focused on the airstrikes and rockets over Gaza and Israel this summer, a wave of violence hit the streets of occupied Jerusalem - and is still roiling parts of this divided city at the core of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.
The kidnapping and killing of three Israeli teens by Palestinians, and the apparent revenge killing of a Palestinian youth by Israelis in occupied Jerusalem, sparked a chain of events that led to the 50-day war between Israel and Hamas fighters in Gaza.
The same events also stoked violence in the streets of occupied Jerusalem, and the Gaza war fed the turmoil.
Israeli rights group Ir Amim reported a spike in Israeli attacks on Palestinians, documenting nearly two dozen such cases.
Compared to the Israel-Gaza fighting, there were few conflict-related deaths and injuries in occupied Jerusalem, and the violence has hardly been felt in the city’s Jewish neighbourhoods, where cafes and shopping centres are bustling.
But some Israeli and Palestinian residents say they feel increasingly unsafe around each other.
Many Palestinians said they stay away from occupied Jerusalem’s Jewish neighbourhoods when tensions are high to avoid attacks or slurs. “I don’t want to be in a situation where I am attacked or even hear one bad word,” said Mohammad Salah Abu Khudair, a Muslim cleric and Palestinian community activist.
In the most recent violence, masked Palestinians ransacked a petrol station and set fire to a petrol pump on Sunday to avenge the death of a 16-year-old Palestinian who died from wounds he sustained in a clash with Israeli troops the previous week.
A Palestinian official said an autopsy showed he was killed from a rubber bullet to the head.
