US teen girl stabbed to death in Palestinian attack on West Bank settlement

A Palestinian attacker stabbed a 13-year-old girl to death at her home in a Jewish settlement in the occupied West Bank on Thursday before being shot dead by security guards, the Israeli army said.

The army said the Palestinian killed the girl in her bed after breaking into her house in the Kiryat Arba settlement outside the city of Hebron.

Security personnel rushed to the house and fired on the attacker, who wounded a guard before being slain, the army said.

The girl was taken to a hospital in Jerusalem in critical condition and died of her wounds.

The Palestinian health ministry identified the attacker as Mohammed Nasser Tarayra, 19, from the village of Bani Naim, just outside the city.

Israeli media, who identified the girl as Hallel Yaffa Ariel, reported that she was attacked in her sleep. The Israeli military released a photograph of her blood-spattered bedroom.

The US State Department revealed later on Thursday that Hallel was a US citizen.

"This brutal act of terrorism is simply unconscionable. We offer our heartfelt condolences of course to her family and to her friends," spokesman John Kirby told reporters.

The State Department spokesman - who called the attack "outrageous" - did not say whether the teen also held Israeli citizenship.

Hours later in the town of Netanya, on the Mediterranean coast north of Tel Aviv, a Palestinian from the northern West Bank stabbed a man and woman, both Israelis, before being shot dead by a passing civilian, police said.

One of the victims suffered serious wounds and the other was moderately hurt, police said in a statement, describing the attack as "a terror incident".

Hebron has been a flashpoint in a spate of deadly unrest that has rocked Israel and the Palestinian territories since last October.

Several hundred Jewish settlers live in a tightly guarded enclave in the heart of the city of more than 200,000 Palestinians, which has been a persistent source of tensions.

The violence since October has killed at least 211 Palestinians, 33 Israelis, two Americans, an Eritrean and a Sudanese.

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

A number of others were shot dead by Israeli security forces during protests or killed by Israeli air strikes on the Gaza Strip.

The number of attacks has declined, but the deadliest yet hit Tel Aviv earlier this month when Palestinian gunmen killed four people at a popular nightspot. The two attackers, cousins from the Hebron area, were arrested.

Analysts say Palestinian frustration with Israeli occupation and settlement-building in the West Bank, a complete lack of progress in peace efforts and their own fractured leadership have fed the unrest.

Israel says incitement by Palestinian leaders and media is a leading cause of the violence.

On a visit to Israel and the occupied Palestinian territories this week, UN chief Ban Ki-moon condemned the recent wave of attacks as "terrorism".

He also urged Israel to address the "key underlying causes of violence", including "growing Palestinian anger, the paralysis of the peace process, the nearly a half-century of occupation".

Negotiations between the Israelis and Palestinians have been at a standstill since a US-led initiative collapsed in April 2014.