On Sunday Palestinian militants shot and killed five Israeli soldiers in two attacks, in Gaza and Hebron.
In the West Bank on Wednesday, schools and government offices were shut to allow for demonstrations backing the UN membership bid in Ramallah, Bethlehem, Nablus and Hebron.
Due to US pressure, over the past year, Israel allowed those forces to deploy in Jenin and Hebron, and in recent months they took some significant actions against Hamas operatives in those areas.
Israeli law strictly forbids Israeli citizens from visiting the main Palestinian cities, but they can drive straight into Ramallah and Hebron without being challenged, while other cities, such as Jericho and Nablus, remain impermeable.
It was only after Operation Defensive Shield returned our soldiers to the streets of Ramallah, Beit Lehem, Shehem, Jenin, Kalkilya and Hebron, and vastly curtailed the powers of the Palestinian armed forces, that we could feel safe going out to dinner and riding the bus again.
The worst-case scenario is that this would leave the Palestinians with about 40% of the West Bank, cut into three unconnected enclaves: one between Jenin and Ramallah, one between Hebron and Bethlehem, and a small circle around Jericho.
In addition to their campus outreach, the ISM sponsors the weekly riots against the security fence in Bil'in and in Hebron, where its protesters throw rocks at IDF soldiers.
Since the beginning of December, Israel has tightened its grip on the reconquered West Bank cities, confiscated more land in the area, killed over 30 Palestinians, arrested scores more, and demolished a large number of Palestinian homes in Hebron and the Gaza strip.
In the south, talks are continuing, despite the bombing, between Israeli and Palestinian Authority officers over Israel's withdrawal from much of the town of Hebron and surrounding villages.
Mr Palmer and his one-year-old son lived in the Kiryat Arba settlement near Hebron and were killed close to the Halhul Junction on Route 60 after a rock was thrown from a passing taxi.
And, after the killing of the Hebron settler, soldiers blasted the cave dwellings and water wells of Bedouins who live in the Hebron Hills.
ECONOMIST: Israel and the Palestinians: No quiet, no peace | The
The accord includes a nine-page protocol on the Israeli troop withdrawal from Hebron and a three-page "note for the record, " summarizing the agreement on further redeployments.
This week the administration condemned Israel for defining the Cave of the Patriarchs in Hebron and Rachel's Tomb in Bethlehem as national heritage sites.
So, for the moment, it is doing, mobilising swiftly to stop demonstrations getting out of control in flashpoints such as Hebron and Nablus and Gaza.
Palestinian guerrillas have indeed fired this week on Israeli targets near Ramallah, East Jerusalem, Bethlehem, Hebron and Gaza, leaving five Israelis wounded and two more Palestinians dead.
The agreement in January on the West Bank town of Hebron and, even more, the accompanying pledge by Israel to withdraw in stages from other (unspecified) parts of the West Bank locked Mr Netanyahu into the process.
An Israeli was shot dead in an Israeli market town that straddles the border with the West Bank, a settler was found dead in a stream near Hebron and a third Israeli was killed near the border.
ECONOMIST: Israel and the Palestinians: No quiet, no peace | The
If the new pilot plan works, and a ceasefire in Gaza is achieved, Israel suggests that similar arrangements could in the future be made for the seven West Bank cities now under full occupation, perhaps starting with Hebron and Bethlehem.
He hails from Dura, near Hebron, and has built his force almost exclusively from West Bank Fatah activists.
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The deployment of Palestinian policemen on the line between Israeli and Palestinian-controlled Hebron brought a month of riots to a temporary end.
The investigation focused on Bawn Cottage Residential Care Home at Hamiltonsbawn and its sister home, Hebron House, in Markethill.
In March 1993, Yoram Skolnik of Kiryat Arba, a settlement near Hebron, shot and killed Moussa Abu Sabah, who was lying motionless and tied-up on the ground.
Exxon and its partners have eyed Hebron for decades.
FORBES: Exxon's 'New' $14 Billion Field Was Discovered 30 Years Ago. What Took So Long?
He described his profound disappointment in the 1947 U.N. partition plan, and the fact that the Jews had not been awarded Biblical places like Hebron, where the Patriarchs are buried, and Shiloh, the center of Jewish worship before the building of the First Temple.
About 150, 000 Palestinians and 450 Jewish settlers live in Hebron, the last West Bank city under Israeli control.
Within just a few weeks of the establishment of the Palestinian Authority in 1994, Jerusalem again became the front line of the country as terrorists from Ramallah, Hebron, Beit Lehem and beyond converged on Jerusalem to terrorize its people in shooting attacks and suicide bombings.
The tighter the link, mainly in terms of roads and the contiguity and acquisition of Jewish houses in ancient Hebron, the harder it will be, in the event of a two-state settlement, to remove a Jewish presence.
ECONOMIST: What would happen to Hebron under a two-state solution?
The achievement of Hebron is a call to action and it must be heeded.
Stone-throwing protesters in the West Bank towns of Hebron, Ramallah, Nablus, Jenin and elsewhere faced off with Israeli soldiers deploying tear gas and stun grenades.
Hebron is the only city in Judea and Samaria where Jews and Palestinians live together, where a city of contrasts and extremes arises to another day of confrontations.
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