Israeli police shoot dead Palestinian attacker

Israeli border police shot dead a Palestinian who stabbed an officer in Jerusalem on Sunday, police said, the latest attack in a two-month wave of violence.

The 38-year-old Palestinian attacker walked past two officers near a main gate of Jerusalem’s walled Old City before pulling out a knife and stabbing a border policeman in the neck, moderately wounding him in the process. Other officers then opened fire at the attacker and shot him dead.

Another knife was later discovered on the Palestinian’s body.

Almost daily Palestinian stabbings, car rammings and shootings have killed 19 Israelis and one US Citizens since October 1. Israeli forces have killed 94 Palestinians, many of whom were carrying out assaults and others in clashes with police and troops. Many of those killed have been teenagers.

Palestinian allegations that Israel is trying to alter the religious status quo at a Jerusalem holy site, known to Muslims as the Noble Sanctuary, where al-Aqsa mosque stands, and to Jews as the Temple Mount, have partly fuelled the violence.

Non-Muslim prayer is banned around al-Aqsa and Israel has said it will not change that. But more visits in recent years by Jewish religious activists and ultra-nationalist Israeli politicians to the complex, where two biblical temples once stood, have done little to convince Palestinians. Similarly, a visit by US secretary of state John Kerry to ease tensions, has also failed.

Overnight in the occupied West Bank city of Hebron, Israeli forces shut down and confiscated equipment from a Palestinian radio station, the third in recent weeks, that the military said has repeatedly broadcast material which "promotes and encourages terror and acts of violence against Israeli civilians and security forces."