Israeli police kill Palestinian woman accused of knife attack

Israeli paramilitary police officers shot and killed a Palestinian woman who tried to attack them with a knife outside Jerusalem's walled Old City on Wednesday, police said.

The incident occurred at Damascus Gate, a heavily guarded entrance to the Old City and the scene of similar violence in the past.

"Police responded to a life-threatening situation and the female terrorist was shot dead at the scene," police spokesman Micky Rosenfeld said.

Luba Samri, a police spokeswoman, said the 49-year-old woman had "approached a group of officers, pulled out a knife and tried to stab them". She said the woman was a resident of East Jerusalem, which Israel captured along with the West Bank in the 1967 Middle East war.

Photos posted on social media showed the woman lying face down after the attack outside the gate, a main entrance to the Old City.

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A number of other entrances to the Old City, a key tourist attraction, were also sealed off, media reported.

A wave of violence that broke out in October 2015 has claimed the lives of 258 Palestinians, 40 Israelis, two Americans, one Jordanian, an Eritrean and a Sudanese national, according to an AFP count.

Most of the Palestinians killed were carrying out knife, gun or car-ramming attacks, according to Israeli authorities. Others died during protests, clashes or in Israeli air raids on the Gaza Strip.

Israel has accused the Palestinian leadership of inciting the violence. The Palestinian Authority, which exercises limited self-rule in the occupied West Bank, denies incitement and charges that in many cases, Israel has used excessive force in thwarting attackers armed with rudimentary weapons, including executing some on the spot.