Israeli police fatally shot a Palestinian woman who allegedly tried to stab officers in Jerusalem's Old City and a Palestinian gunman in the occupied West Bank on Thursday. According to a police statement, the woman attacker attempted to stab police in one of the streets leading to the Al-Aqsa mosque, where a journalist heard gunshots and saw the body of a woman on the ground, later draped in a survival blanket. The woman was leaving the Al-Aqsa compound, Islam's third holiest site. "After she approached them, she drew a knife and attempted to stab the officers at the scene, who responded by shooting at her," police said in a statement. "Medical personnel who arrived at the scene pronounced her dead." The Palestinian Health Ministry identified the woman as 30-year-old Isra Khzamiah from a northern West Bank town near the city of Jenin, an area where tensions have run high following an escape by Palestinian prisoners from an Israeli prison earlier this month. The Palestinians and Israeli human rights groups say security personnel often use excessive force. In May, days of clashes at the site between Palestinians and Israeli forces were the prelude to 11 days of conflict in Gaza between Israel and the territory's Islamist rulers Hamas, the heaviest fighting between the two sides in years. Five Palestinians were killed on Sunday after an Israeli raid in the occupied West Bank sparked gunbattles with Hamas militants, officials said. Israel captured east Jerusalem and the West Bank in the 1967 Mideast war. The city, holy to the three Abrahamic religions, is the focal point of the decades-long Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Israel annexed the city's eastern half — home to holy sites to Jews, Christians and Muslims — in a move unrecognized by most of the international community and considers the city its undivided capital. The Palestinians seek east Jerusalem as capital of a future independent state. In a separate incident, Israel's Border Police said that a Palestinian man opened fire on troops involved in an overnight arrest raid in a northern West Bank town. The Border Police said in a statement that troops returned fire. The official Palestinian news agency, WAFA, reported that a 22-year-old man was killed and two others wounded. In a separate incident, Israeli settlers attacked a Palestinian village in the occupied West Bank on Wednesday, throwing stones at cars and homes and injuring several people, including a Palestinian toddler, AP reported. Video of Tuesday's attack on the Palestinian village released by an Israeli rights group showed several shirtless settlers with scarves wrapped around their faces hurling stones at a cluster of homes and vehicles. A four-year-old boy, Mohammed Bakr, was admitted to hospital with a head injury. Israeli troops stood among the settlers but did not appear to be taking any action to stop them. The Israeli military declined to comment. -- Agencies
