2 Palestinians killed in Jerusalem attacks

According to police, two Palestinian men were killed after two separate attacks that left Israeli border policewoman dead

Israeli security forces and an ambulance are seen at the scene of an attack outside Damascus Gate in Jerusalem's Old City on 16 June (AFP)

Friday 16 June 2017

Israeli police shot and killed two suspected Palestinian assailants after a policewoman was stabbed and killed outside Jerusalem's Old City on Friday.

The attacks took place as Muslims were marking the end of the third Friday of the fasting month of Ramadan, during which tens of thousands of Palestinians from east Jerusalem and the West Bank attended prayers at the nearby Al-Aqsa mosque compound, Islam's third-holiest site.

According to police, two people opened fire at a group of police officers who returned fire, and a third stabbed the border policewoman a short distance away before being shot. It was earlier reported that all three suspected assailants were killed, but a police spokesperson backtracked and said that one was taken to hospital for gunshot wounds.

Palestinian security forces identified the Palestinians as Bara' Saleh and Adel Ankoush, both 18 and from Deir Abu Mashal near Ramallah, and 31-year-old Amer Badawi from Hebron.

Israeli police spokesman Micky Rosenfeld said on Twitter that border policewoman Hadas Malka, 23, was killed in the attack.

Medics said two other people were moderately wounded in the attack, and a further two lightly wounded.

A wave of unrest that broke out in October 2015 has claimed the lives of 272 Palestinians, 41 Israelis, two Americans, two Jordanians, an Eritrean, a Sudanese and a Briton, according to an AFP tally.

Israeli authorities say most of the Palestinians killed were carrying out knife, gun or car-ramming attacks.