Israeli security forces announced a series of arrests amid ongoing Palestinian violence. PHOTO: Wikipedia.

Israeli security forces announced they thwarted three separate terrorist attacks on Thursday targeting Israelis across Israel, local media reported.

According to local news website nrg, Israeli soldiers discovered a Palestinian man attempting to cut through the chain link fence surrounding the Adora settlement, in the Judean desert near Hebron. After stopping the man, soldiers discovered a “sharp knife” on his person and detained him for further military investigation, according to nrg.

Also on Thursday, armed forces arrested two Palestinians in Givatayim, just east of Tel Aviv, over suspicions they wanted to launch a terrorist attack. And near Kfar Chabad, a religious town in central Israel, police arrested another Palestinian man bearing “knives and a Hamas flag,” bringing him in for questioning, according to nrg.

On Wednesday, one 15-year-old girl’s parents called the police after they received a text message from their daughter saying they would “see her in the news.” Police in Beersheba found her at the local train station and arrested her. She later admitted to having planned a stabbing attack against Jews and Israeli security forces, according to nrg.

The reported arrests came after weeks of dozens of seemingly random stabbing attacks against Israeli civilians, and a deadly escalation in Israeli-Palestinian violence. Israel deployed some 300 soldiers in Jerusalem and throughout the country this week to prevent further attacks and warned that Hamas had organized “Day of Rage” demonstrations to take place on Friday.

Israeli security ministers meanwhile defended Israel against State Department suggestions Israel may be using excessive force. Defense Minister Moshe Ya’alon questioned whether shooting someone wielding a knife was excessive force, and Public Security Minister Gilad Erdan called State spokesman John Kirby’s remarks “foolish,” saying police were “not harming innocent civilians,” Haaretz reported.