Palestinian stabs Israeli officer, shot dead: police

A Palestinian stabbed an Israeli policeman with a screwdriver in annexed east Jerusalem's Old City before being shot dead today, police said.

The attacker "produced a screwdriver and stabbed a policeman in the head, lightly injuring him", police spokeswoman Luba Samri said in a statement.

"Security forces neutralised the terrorist."

She later confirmed he had died of his injuries after being taken to a local hospital.

The assailant struck in the heart of the Old City, a major draw for foreign tourists and pilgrims but the site of several attacks over the past year.

Samri said in a later statement the Palestinian was a 21-year-old and from Beit Surik village near Ramallah in the northern West Bank.
 

A wave of Palestinian knife, gun and car-ramming attacks erupted last year, but the violence has greatly subsided in recent months.

Since October 2015, 243 Palestinians, 36 Israelis, two Americans, a Jordanian, an Eritrean and a Sudanese have been killed, according to an AFP count.

Most of the Palestinians killed were carrying out knife, gun or car-ramming attacks, according to Israeli authorities.

Others were shot dead during protests or clashes, while some died in Israeli air strikes on Gaza.