by Our Foreign Desk

ISRAEL banned Palestinian residents of Jerusalem from entering the Old City yesterday as Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu vowed another “harsh offensive on Palestinian Islamic terror.”

The unprecedented act of collective punishment was apparently a response to a series of attacks on Israeli citizens.

It is the first time Jerusalem’s Palestinians have been shut out of the Old City — which contains sites sacred to Muslims, Jews and Christians including the Dome of the Rock, Western Wall and Church of the Holy Sepulchre — since Israel’s illegal occupation of East Jerusalem began in 1967.

Police spokesman Micky Rosenfeld said the ban would last for two days “to make sure there are no further attacks during the Jewish festival when you can see thousands of people visiting the Old City.”

Palestinian teenager Muhannad Halabi killed two Israelis, soldier Aharon Banita and rabbi Nehemia Lavi, by stabbing in the Old City on Saturday, before being shot dead as he attacked Mr Banita’s wife and child.

Fadi Alloun, who like Mr Halabi was 19, stabbed an Israeli 15-year-old on Sunday morning and was also killed by police. His victim was “moderately wounded,” according to police.

Facebook posts by Mr Alloun and Mr Halabi referred to clashes at the al-Aqsa mosque, which have intensified recently.

Radical zionist groups have talked of seizing the holy site, which is known as the Noble Sanctuary to Muslims and the Temple Mount to Jews, inflaming tensions with a Palestinian community already facing systematic discrimination and a city housing policy which manipulates residency rights, taxes and absentee property laws to expand Jewish-only areas.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu spoke of an “all-out war against terror,” raising spectres of last year’s bloody assault on Gaza that left thousands dead.

Israeli Defence Forces soldiers also opened fire yesterday on Palestinians in the West Bank as they conducted an arrest in the Jenin refugee camp, wounding 26 people.

“A few dozen” Palestinians had attacked troops who had surrounded the house of the “suspect,” the IDF said.

Witnesses said the Israelis had fired “a small missile” at the house to force their quarry outside.