JERUSALEM — After days of fighting at Jerusalem's most sensitive holy site, Palestinian attackers carried out two attacks on Friday, officials said, killing three people and injuring at least six others. Fears of a more significant conflict were raised earlier in the day after Israel struck Lebanon and the Gaza Strip in retaliation.

According to Israeli authorities, an Italian tourist was killed when a car rammed into a group of tourists in Tel Aviv, Israel's commercial center, and five other Italian and British tourists were injured.

In a separate incident in the occupied West Bank, two British-Israeli women were shot and killed close to a settlement.

With the rare convergence of the Jewish Passover holiday, Easter, and the month of Ramadan currently in progress, the spasm of violence in Israel and the West Bank increased concerns of an even more intense surge.

All reserve members of Israel's border police, a paramilitary force typically used to quell Palestinian unrest, have been activated, according to Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, "to confront the terror attacks."

The extra border police will be put into action on Sunday and will join other units that have recently been stationed in Lod, a town in central Israel with a mixture of Jewish and Palestinian residents, and Jerusalem.

On Friday morning, Israel bombed the Gaza Strip and launched rare airstrikes on Lebanon, but later in the day, there were indications that both sides were attempting to restrain the border hostilities. After dawn, the fighting stopped, and the noontime prayers at Jerusalem's Al-Aqsa Mosque were peaceful.

The conflict broke out after Israeli police searched a mosque earlier in the week erupting anger throughout the Arab world. In some of the heaviest and most severe cross-border violence since Israel's 2006 war with Lebanon's Hezbollah militants, militants launched an unusually large rocket barrage at Israel on Thursday from Gaza as well as southern Lebanon.

According to police, the attacker in the late-Friday Tel Aviv car-ramming ploughed into a crowd of onlookers close to a popular oceanside stop. Israel's security service reported the death of a 30-year-old Italian man, and five other British and Italian tourists, including a 74-year-old man and a 17-year-old girl, were being treated for minor to serious injuries.

The police shot and killed the driver of the car, who was a 45-year-old Kafr Qassem resident and Palestinian citizen of Israel.

Social media users uploaded a video of a car recently losing control and slamming after tearing along a walkway for a few hundred yards (meters).
Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni expressed "closeness to the victim's family" and "solidarity with Israel for the vile attack." Alessandro Parini, a Rome resident, was identified as the victim by the witness. In the Jordan Valley, close to an Israeli settlement, a shooting in the West Bank claimed the lives of two sisters in their 20s and critically injured their 45-year-old mother.

Israel's military destroyed underground tunnels and Hamas weapons production facilities in the Gaza Strip, including a children's hospital in Gaza City. Israelis living along the southern border of the country returned home from bomb shelters following the attacks. One missile landed in the town of Sderot, sending shrapnel slicing into a house, but most missiles that managed to enter Israeli territory struck open areas. On either side of the southern border, no casualties were reported.

According to the Israeli military, everyone wished to prevent a full-fledged conflict. Lt. Col. Richard Hecht, a spokesman, declared that "quiet will be met with quiet."

The West Bank remained tense even as a tenuous calm developed along the borders with Gaza and Lebanon. There has been an increase in violence in recent months, with Palestinian health officials stating that the beginning of 2023 will be the deadliest for Palestinians in 20 years.

According to Netanyahu, a resolution to the dispute is imminent. The Israeli police and Palestinian worshipers clashed at Al-Aqsa this week, sparking a regional conflict.

Before Friday's dawn prayers, chaos broke out at the entrance to the esplanade in Jerusalem. Israeli police stormed the area brandishing batons as they charged crowds of Palestinian worshipers who were chanting pro-Hamas slogans.

Later, as worshippers left, they organized a sizable demonstration in the limestone courtyard, raising their fists, yelling anti-Israel slogans, and waving Hamas flags. Access to the area is under Israeli control, but Jordanian and Islamic officials are in charge of running the compound.
The unrest occurs at a precarious time for Jerusalem's Old City, which was brimming with pilgrims from all over the world and was permeated with religious fervor.