Palestinian shot and killed after stabbing Israeli officer

A Palestinian man was shot and died after stabbing an Israeli police officer with a screwdriver in annexed east Jerusalem's Old City on Wednesday, Israeli 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.

Samri said police "neutralised the terrorist".

The incident happened 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.

A later statement said the attacker had been taken to a nearby hospital with serious injuries. He was later pronounced dead.

Samri said he was 21 years old and from the Hebron area in the south of the occupied West Bank.

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

According to a tally by the AFP news agency, 242 Palestinians, 36 Israelis, two Americans, a Jordanian, an Eritrean and a Sudanese have been killed in violence since October 2015.

Most of the Palestinians killed were carrying out attacks, according to Israeli authorities.

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