Authorities in Israel have put security forces on high alert ahead of the upcoming Jewish holidays and after eight people were lightly injured Thursday in a stabbing attack in the town of Modin.

File - Israeli police during a protest in Jerusalem. - Ilia Yefimovich/dpa© Provided by News 360

Israel Police Chief Kobi Shabtai said authorities have detected an increase in the number of alerts about plans to carry out attacks and stressed that "large deployments" of officers will be made in response to the threat.

Thus, he detailed that from Saturday until October 18, the Police will be on high alert, while during Rosh Hashanah, Yom Kippur and the first and last days of Sukkot, Israel will close its border crossings to Palestinians in the West Bank and Gaza Strip, according to the newspaper 'The Times of Israel'.

On Thursday, the Islamic Resistance Movement (Hamas) warned of "repercussions" for Jewish worshippers visiting the Esplanade of the Mosques -- known to Jews as the Temple Mount -- during the holiday.

Mahmud al-Zahar, a senior official of the group, stressed that Hamas "will defend the rights and holy sites" through "all possible means." "These violations will not go unchallenged," he said.

In this regard, he called on Palestinians to mobilize and flock to Al Aqsa Mosque in the face of the Israeli authorities' "Judaization" plans and held Israel "fully responsible" for "the repercussions of its violations in Jerusalem and Al Aqsa Mosque."

Al-Zahar called for "escalating clashes" in the face of Israeli plans and said that Israel "is accelerating the forms of aggression and the pace of Judaization plans" in the city of Jerusalem, Palestinian news agency Maan reported.

In this line, he called on Jordan to "intervene urgently" to "protect Jerusalem" and called on Arab and Islamic countries to act to "deter the occupation and force it to stop its racist plans and bring Israel's crimes (...) before the International Criminal Court (ICC)".

LATEST ATTACKS During the day on Thursday, at least eight people were injured in an attack perpetrated in Modin by a man who got out of a vehicle at a traffic light and began attacking the occupants of several nearby vehicles with a knife.

The attacker, a 22-year-old Palestinian resident of East Jerusalem, was shot dead by an off-duty Border Police officer, after which authorities pointed to a terrorist attack. No group has so far claimed responsibility for the attack.

The incident took place hours after an Israeli soldier was lightly wounded after being run over near the northern West Bank city of Huwara, as confirmed by the Israel Defense Forces.

"Soldiers fired at the vehicle following standard procedure," the Israeli Army has noted on its Twitter social network account. "The circumstances of the event are being reviewed. The suspect has been detained and transferred by security forces for interrogation," it has noted.

Separately, shots were fired at the Har Bracha settlement near Nablus early Friday, with no injuries reported. The incident is the second such incident in two consecutive days in this settlement.

Responsibility for the attack has been claimed by a group calling itself 'Lion's Den', created in recent months by members of various Palestinian organizations, including individuals formerly linked to the Al Aqsa Martyrs Brigade - armed wing of Fatah - and Islamic Jihad.

This new group reportedly maintains ties to Ibrahim Nabulsi, a senior member of the Al Aqsa Martyrs Brigade killed last month in an operation by Israeli security forces in the West Bank city of Nablus.