A Palestinian stabbed and lightly wounded two Israeli police officers outside Jerusalem's Damascus Gate on Friday before they shot him dead, police said.

"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.

Since October 1, Palestinian knife, gun and car-ramming attacks have taken the lives of 27 Israelis, an American and an Eritrean, according to an AFP count.

At the same time, 173 Palestinians have been killed by Israeli forces, most while carrying out attacks but others during clashes and demonstrations.

On Thursday, two Palestinian teens stabbed to death an off-duty soldier in a supermarket in the West Bank and wounded another man before being shot.
Source :AFP