The Palestinian president, Mahmoud Abbas, has warned Palestinians not to fall into the trap of “militarising” the current escalation of violence as confrontations with Israeli security forces appeared to spread on Tuesday.

“We don’t want a military and security escalation with Israel,” Abbas said at a meeting of Palestinian officials, according to the official news agency Wafa. “We are telling our security forces, our political movements, that we do not want an escalation, but that we want to protect ourselves.”

Although Abbas’s comments were initially interpreted as an indication he was moving to calm the situation – amid reports that Israeli and Palestinian security officials planned to meet on Tuesday evening – a Palestine Liberation Organisation (PLO) statement issued later seemed to undermine those hopes.

“Saluting the masses of Palestinians who are confronting the occupation,” the statement said, before calling on Palestinians to “unite for an act of national defence”.

“What [the two statements] are saying,” said one Palestinian official as he predicted a “difficult week ahead”, “is do not fall into an Israeli trap and start shooting. It does not mean Abbas is saying no to the popular resistance.”

The contradictory comments appeared designed to skirt a fine line between support for the protests and preventing an escalation by Palestinian factions into exchanges of live fire with Israeli soldiers.

Israeli prime minister Binyamin Netanyahu. Photograph: Baz Ratner/Reuters

The latest developments came amid angry scenes in Bethlehem where thousands gathered to bury 13-year-old Abdul Rahman Shadi, who was shot and killed by an Israeli sniper on Monday in what Israeli military sources are now claiming was an accident.

A senior IDF officer, quoted in Haaretz, described his death as “unintentional” and said that the target of the fire was an adult standing close toAbdul Rahman.



After his funeral, Palestinian security forces in plain clothes prevented teenagers from clashing with Israeli soldiers by the cemetery and separation wall – where Abdul Rahman was shot – although they did not interfere in clashes on the main street outside the Intercontinental Hotel.

Abdul Rahman’s mother, Delal, said her son was returning home from school and posed no threat to soldiers when he was shot, allegedly from an observation window in the separation wall near Rachel’s Tomb.

“He was killed in cold blood wearing his school uniform,” his mother said. “They didn’t need to shoot him in the heart. He wasn’t holding a rifle or a rocket. Even if he had a stone he couldn’t reach them.”

Showing journalists the spot where Abdul Rahman was shot, his cousin Sultan Mustafa Obeidallah said even if the 13-year-old had been throwing stones he was too distant from the wall to pose a threat.

Tuesday’s confrontations were not confined to Bethlehem, with clashes continuing elsewhere in the West Bank. They included at the Qalandiya checkpoint between Jerusalem and Ramallah where 14 Palestinians were injured by mid-afternoon, including a Palestinian journalist, Salah Zayyed, 35, who was shot in the stomach.

Another protester was reported to be in a critical condition after being hit in the head with a rubber bullet.

Walid Abirat, 32, who owns a men’s clothing shop on Jerusalem Road, leading to the Qalandiya checkpoint, said the situation was escalating rapidly and moving toward something bigger, echoing comments on both sides that the recent spike in violence could lead to a new intifada or uprising.

“People are now very afraid of Jewish settlers and they are also tired of the situation,” Abirat added.

Protester Mostafa Abu Raman said he believed a third intifada had already begun.

“For 22 years we’ve only had empty talk and nothing concrete. We haven’t been given anything. The Palestinians haven’t been given anything and the Israelis don’t want peace,” he said.

Four Israelis have been killed since Thursday in a stabbing and a drive-by shooting by Palestinians. Police shot dead the knife attacker, while the Israeli military has arrested five members of the Islamist Hamas group it blamed for the shooting.

Abbas’s contradictory comments reflect the pressure that both he and the Israeli prime minister, Binyamin Netanyahu, are under from large sections of their own constituencies over the recent violence. In Abbas’s case the source is frustrated Palestinians who, polls suggest, are increasingly disillusioned with Abbas’s leadership and favour a harder line with Israel.

Netanyahu is also under pressure from rightwing allies in his razor-thin coalition to respond forcefully to Palestinian unrest, but that could risk provoking the violent escalation of an already volatile situation.

As part of Netanyahu’s pledge to stem what he termed a “wave of terrorism”, Israeli forces destroyed the homes of two Palestinians involved in attacks last year.