Palestinians shot dead in attacks on Israeli forces

Three Palestinians have been shot dead in separate attacks against Israeli security forces on Friday.

The first was shot dead after wounding two Israeli police officers outside Jerusalem's Damascus Gate, 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, identifying the attacker 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 twenties with stab wounds, both of them in a stable condition.

Medics said they had also treated a 50-year-old woman who had suffered a light wound to her leg, apparently as a result of the shooting, before taking 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. 

In a second attack on Friday afternoon, a Palestinian was shot dead after trying to run over Israeli soldiers in the occupied West Bank, the Israeli army said.

"During a violent riot in Silwad, northeast of Ramallah, an assailant attempted to ram his vehicle into soldiers," an army statement said, referring to an area in the northern West Bank. 

"The soldiers responded to the immediate threat and fired towards the assailant, resulting in his death."

A third, named as Khaled Taqatqa, 21, was shot dead by Israeli forces in clashes in Beit Fajjar near Bethlehem in the southern West Bank.

Since 1 October, 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.