JERUSALEM: Israeli police have shot dead a Palestinian man in occupied Jerusalem’s Old City after he allegedly stabbed and wounded two police officers with a knife, the second such incident in as many days.

The Magen David Adom emergency service said it was treating two men in their 20s the two officers who were in moderate condition. The police said the Palestinian was critically wounded and later died.

Palestinian sources identified him as Abdel Rahman Qassam, 22, from the Jalazone refugee camp near Ramallah.

Israeli police alleged the Palestinian man had come from Al Aqsa Mosque, Islam’s third-holiest site, where violence exploded last May after Israeli police and illegal settlers stormed the compound in response to worshippers throwing rocks. 

Hamas, which governs besieged Gaza, praised the “stabbing attack” as a response to Israel’s “extrajudicial killings” of Palestinians in Jerusalem, though it did not claim the attacker as a member of the group.

“These operations will continue as long as the occupation continues its aggression and its violations against the sacred sites in Jerusalem,” Hamas spokesperson Hazem Qassem said.