NEW ASKAR REFUGEE CAMP, West Bank — The 16-year-old gave clear warning that she was up to something days before she swapped her schoolbooks for a knife and headed to a nearby Israeli military checkpoint. If I am killed, Ashrakat Qattanani told her father, “Don’t cry for me, cry for Palestine.”

Hadeel Awwad, 14, betrayed no such thoughts. Her brother had been shot dead by Israeli forces two years before, but that had inspired her to become a doctor, so she could save lives. But close to the second anniversary of her brother’s death, Hadeel picked up a pair of scissors and with her cousin Nourhan, 16, walked calmly to a Jerusalem market.

The three teenagers are among the 15 young women who have stabbed, tried to stab or, the Israeli authorities say, intended to stab Israeli soldiers or civilians in the West Bank and Jerusalem since an uprising began in October. Where previous outbursts of Palestinian violence predominantly involved men and boys, women and girls have accounted for about 20 percent of all Palestinian attackers in the last two months. And for perhaps the first time in the patriarchal Palestinian society they are acting on their own, without consulting any male authorities.

On Tuesday, a 19-year-old university student, Maram Hasouna, was shot dead after she lunged at soldiers with a knife at a military checkpoint in the northern West Bank, the Israeli military said. Another young woman was taken in for questioning after she was found near Efrat, a Jewish settlement in the West Bank, with a knife in her bag, Israeli news media reported.