Two Israeli police officers shot dead a Palestinian young man outside Jerusalem's Damascus Gate on Friday after they claimed that he stabbed and lightly wounded them.
"A terrorist attacked a squad of officers from behind, stabbed and wounded them lightly, the squad responded with fire and neutralised the terrorist," police said, confirming the death of the perpetrator and identifying him as a 20-year-old Palestinian from Kafr Aqeb.
A spokeswoman for the Shaare Zedek hospital in Jerusalem said they received two men in their 20s suffering stab wounds, both of them in stable condition.
Medics said they had also treated a 50-year-old woman who had sustained a light wound to her leg, apparently as a result of the shooting, before evacuating her to a hospital in east Jerusalem.
The site of the attack, in annexed east Jerusalem and adjacent to its Old City, has been a focal point in the latest wave of violence.
The current wave of protests by Palestinians and repression by Israeli occupation forces started in late July when toddler Ali Dawabsha was burned to death and three other Palestinians were severely injured after their house in the occupied West Bank was set on fire by Israeli settlers.
Settlement-building, racial discrimination, confiscation of identity cards, long queues at checkpoints, as well as daily clashes and the desecration of Al-Aqsa mosque, describe Palestinians' daily suffering.
The anger of Palestinian residents of Jerusalem has increased in the last three years after the Israeli authorities allowed increasing numbers of Jewish settlers to storm the Al-Aqsa mosque.
The surge in violence has been fuelled by Palestinians' frustration over Israel's 48-year occupation of land they seek for an independent state, and the expansion of settlements in those territories which were captured by Israel in the 1967 Middle East war.
Palestinian leaders say a younger generation sees no hope for the future living under Israeli security restrictions and with a stifled economy. The latest round of U.S.-brokered peace talks collapsed in April 2014.
*The story was edited by Ahram Online.
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