Israeli army soldiers deployed near Hebron as the defense establishment is gearing for another day of potentially violent riots and clashes in the West Bank ahead of Monday’s funeral of Arafat Jaradat, a security prisoner held in an Israeli prison who died from a cardiac arrest.
The Palestinians claim that his death was caused by torture, but the autopsy at the Abu Kabir Institute of Forensic Medicine found no external physical injuries.
Jaradat's death agitated further the already highly tense West Bank, sparking a series of riots.
Sunday saw hundreds of Palestinians clash with security forces during several demonstrations held over the prisoner's death.
Some 4,500 Palestinian prisoners held in Israel began what may become a widespread hunger strike in protest of the incident.
On Sunday, Israel sent “an unequivocal demand” to the Palestinian Authority to take all the necessary measures to quell unrest.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu also ordered the transfer of January arrears of tax revenues that Israel collects on the behalf of the Palestinians but has been withholding, the government said in a statement.
“Israel passed an unequivocal demand to the Palestinian Authority to calm down the territory,” the statement said.
“In order that the non-payment of taxes that Israel collects for the Palestinians should not serve as an excuse for the Palestinian Authority not to calm the territory, Netanyahu instructed the money for January to be transferred,” it added.
With Barack Obama’s visit to the region just a month away, the latest violent Palestinian protests are placing a serious question mark over the US President’s plan to reboot the peace process.
Just days ago, a leading Palestinian official warned violence would likely increase further if prisoners were not released or one died in an Israeli jail.
The Palestinians are demanding the release of prisoners, with some leaders wanting to see a major release ahead of any peace talks with Israel.
However, Israel will not release hundreds of prisoners who were behind terror attacks. Many of those the Palestinian Authority wants released either killed Israelis themselves or instructed others to do so.
Despite that, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu reportedly recently offered to release some inmates as a goodwill gesture to Palestinian Authority head Mahmoud Abbas. The latter rejected the offer.
Abbas himself is beginning to talk up a third intifada (popular uprising) although so far he is speaking about a “peaceful intifada” – a concept jointly conceived with Khaled Mashaal, leader of the Iran-backed Hamas Islamist movement that controls the Gaza Strip.
While the first intifada in the 1980s was largely dominated by popular protests, many of them violent, the second intifada, which began more than a decade ago, was anything but a popular uprising. Thousands of Israeli civilians were killed and wounded in wave after wave of suicide bombings.