By Ola Attalah
GAZA CITY
Palestinian resistance faction Hamas has described a recent spate of attacks on Israelis as a "natural result" of Israeli "crimes" against the Palestinian people.
"Palestinian operations in the West Bank and Jerusalem are a natural result of Israeli crimes against the Palestinians and continuing assaults on [Jerusalem's] Al-Aqsa Mosque," Hamas said in a Monday statement.
On Monday, an Israeli girl was killed when a Palestinian stabbed three Jewish settlers in the West Bank.
The attack came shortly after an Israeli soldier was injured after being stabbed near a Tel Aviv train station by a Palestinian from the Askar refugee camp in the West Bank city of Nablus.
Tension has run high in the occupied West Bank and East Jerusalem since late last month, when Israel closed the Al-Aqsa Mosque compound for several hours after an extremist rabbi was injured in a drive-by shooting in West Jerusalem.
Unrest mounted further when Israeli forces killed a young Palestinian man suspected of shooting the rabbi in a raid on his East Jerusalem home.
Last month, an Israeli baby was killed when a Palestinian driver plowed into a group of Israeli pedestrians in West Jerusalem.
And last week, an Israeli police officer was killed in a similar vehicular attack in East Jerusalem.
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