Israeli forces kill 25 Palestinians in 12 days

Twenty-five Palestinians have been killed and more than 1,000 wounded by Israeli airstrikes and gunfire in occupied Jerusalem, the West Bank and Gaza Strip since Oct. 1.

According to Israel's Police spokesman Micky Rosenfeld, a Palestinian was shot dead in east Jerusalem on Monday while he allegedly attempted a “knife attack" on a police officer.

Another 13-year-old Palestinian boy fell victim to Israeli gunfire in the West Bank while a woman and her daughter were killed by Israeli airstrikes in Gaza on Sunday, according to the Palestinian Health Ministry.

Also on Sunday, at least 44 Jewish settlers – accompanied by Israeli police – forced their way into east Jerusalem's flashpoint al-Aqsa Mosque compound, according to Firas Dibs, a spokesman for the al-Aqsa Foundation, which manages the site.

Tension has mounted between Palestinians and Israeli security forces since Sept. 13, when Israel began barring Palestinian men under 50 from entering east Jerusalem's al-Aqsa Mosque, Islam's third holiest site.

Palestinians across the West Bank and east Jerusalem – and many inside Israel itself – have protested the restrictions, which they say violate their right to worship.

Israeli security forces, meanwhile, have responded to widespread Palestinian protests in the West Bank with teargas, rubber-coated bullets and live ammunition, resulting in over 1,000 injuries among Palestinian demonstrators.

Extremist Jewish groups now stage almost daily incursions into al-Aqsa despite a longstanding Israeli policy of banning non-Muslim prayer at the site.

Many Palestinians believe Israel is now reversing this policy while simultaneously restricting Muslim entry to al-Aqsa in an attempt to gradually transfer management of the site – which is also considered holy by Jews – away from its current Muslim administrators.