Jerusalem violence puts strain on Israel’s fragile coalition government

Clashes in Jerusalem that have stoked tensions during the Muslim holy month of Ramadan spread into Sunday, triggering 18 arrests and putting further strain on Israel’s coalition government.

Israeli riot police faced off with fireworks-hurling Palestinians in the alleyways of the walled Old City after a visit by Jews to a disputed holy site.

Several passengers on two buses were lightly wounded when stone-throwing Palestinians smashed the vehicles’ windows. And a small group of Jewish worshippers was attacked.

Sunday’s confrontations were less violent than clashes at Jerusalem’s Al-Aqsa mosque compound two days earlier, but they were enough to prompt a small but pivotal Arab party to review its membership in Israeli Prime Minister Naftali Bennett’s ruling coalition, which no longer has a majority in parliament.

The United Arab List — the first party drawn from the country’s 21% Arab minority to join an Israeli government — said it was suspending its government membership over Israel’s handling of the Al-Aqsa violence and would consider officially resigning if things did not change.

Bennett’s coalition controls 60 of 120 seats in parliament, including four from the United Arab List.

Some political commentators said the announcement was a symbolic gesture to take pressure off party leaders during the crisis and it could be resolved by the time parliament reconvenes next month.

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The Old City lies in East Jerusalem, which Israel captured in a 1967 war and which Palestinians seek to make the capital of a future state.

Tensions over Jerusalem fanned an 11-day war last May between Israel and Hamas Islamist militants in the Gaza Strip.

Bennett lost his razor-thin parliamentary majority this month after a lawmaker from his nationalist party quit.

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Meanwhile two Palestinian men were critically injured by Israeli forces in the occupied West Bank on Monday, the Palestinian Health Ministry said, the latest incident in a wave of recent violence.

The Israeli military were conducting an arrest raid in the village of Yamun, west of Jenin in the northern West Bank, when dozens of Palestinians started throwing rocks and explosives at the troops, who returned fire.

“The soldiers responded with live ammunition toward the suspects who hurled explosive devices. Hits were identified,” the army said in a statement.

The two wounded men were hospitalized, according to the official Palestinian news agency Wafa.

The military said it arrested 11 Palestinians in raids across the West Bank overnight on Monday.

Israel has sent forces to search through Palestinian cities and villages in search of suspects or accomplices linked to two deadly attacks on Israelis in recent weeks. Earlier this month, a Palestinian gunman opened fire at a crowded Tel Aviv bar, killing three, and fled the scene. He was later killed in a shootout with police after an extensive manhunt.

That assault, as well as three other attacks elsewhere in Israel in recent weeks, have killed 14 people, the deadliest outburst of bloodshed against Israelis in years.

At least 25 Palestinians have been killed by Israeli forces in recent weeks, according to an Associated Press count. Many had carried out attacks or were involved in the clashes, but an unarmed woman and a lawyer who appears to have been a bystander were also among those killed.