Israel’s government has proposed harsh measures against Palestinians in response to an increase in violence on Jewish settlers in the West Bank. A move that analysts say could quickly backfire. The proposals come after the US, Russia, EU, and UN issued a joint report, criticizing the region’s status quo. CCTV America’s Stephanie Freid gave us this report.

A young girl was stabbed to death while sleeping in her bed after a Palestinian assailant climbed through a window of the family home. She was thirteen – her attacker, also a teenager, was only a few years older.

A day later, gunmen opened fire at a car traveling in the West Bank killing this father of ten and injuring his wife and two children. 

Israel’s government immediately clamped a closure on seven hundred thousand Palestinians living in the West Bank town of Hebron as searches for the gunmen got underway 

“We say to the murderers: You will not break us. We will continue operating against terror in all places and at all times in a determined, aggressive manner,” Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said.

The uptick in deadly incidents comes as the Mideast Quartet issued a report citing Israel’s continued policy of settlement building on occupied Palestinian land and long-stalled peace efforts between Palestinians and Israelis as deterrents to resolution. 

But measures implemented by Israel’s government in the wake of the latest killings, say analysts, may further inflame current tensions. 

Those measures include building dozens of new settlement housing units, withholding monthly tax revenue Israel’s government pays to the Palestinian Authority, and proposals to shut down the Palestinian 3G network and imprison or exile Palestinian relatives of perpetrators.