Seven Israelis and 27 Palestinians, including nine alleged attackers and eight children, have died in nearly two weeks of street attacks and security crackdowns.
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Police spokesman Micky Rosenfeld initially called Tuesday’s stabbing near the IKEA store in Kiryat Ata a criminally motivated attack.
At around the same time another attack appeared to be carried out in the Geula neighbourhood.
A recent wave of Palestinian knife attacks in Jerusalem and Israel has prompted Israeli authorities to step up security, with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu ordering the deployment 16 battalions of the paramilitary Border Police.
The army says it is using “riot dispersal means” against the crowd.
The recent surge in violence has been building momentum for weeks, driven by anger over Israel’s on-going occupation of the West Bank and disputes over access to the Al Aqsa mosque compound in the Old City of Jerusalem. Police spokeswoman Luba Samri said the country’s internal security minister, Gilad Erdan, was considering a number of immediate steps, including a closure on Arab neighborhoods in east Jerusalem, where numerous attackers have come from, and making it easier to get gun licenses.
One of the attackers was apparently hit by a auto and wounded.
In a separate, near-simultaneous attack, another assailant rammed a auto into a bus station before stabbing bystanders. The rumors ignited clashes between Israeli police and Palestinian activists who hurled stones and firebombs at them from inside the mosque, and the violence has spread.
Two more terrorist attacks took place earlier on Tuesday in the small town of Ra’anana, which is located near Tel Aviv.
In Raanana, just north of Tel Aviv, a Palestinian man stabbed and lightly wounded an Israeli on a shopping street during the morning rush hour, officials and witnesses said. One person was killed.
In the bus attack, police said two men, one carrying a gun and the other with a knife, boarded the vehicle and attacked passengers.
Amid continued attacks and clashes – and claims by Palestinians that a few of those shot had been victims of trigger-happy policing – an atmosphere of fear and mutual distrust has descended, particularly in Jerusalem, where parents spoke of being afraid of sending their children to school. Police said they shot the other assailant and killed him when he ran at officers with a knife raised and ignored calls to stop.
Israelis have been stabbed by Palestinians in two serious attacks in Jerusalem, as both sides brace themselves for major protests, with no end to the violence in sight. Nearly simultaneously, there was another stabbing attack in another part of the city.
Recent days have also seen frequent clashes in occupied West Bank and East Jerusalem between Palestinian youth and Israeli security forces, who typically respond with teargas, rubber-coated bullets and live fire.
Israeli police say a Palestinian has stabbed an Israeli on a main road in central Israel.
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Since the Jewish New Year last month, five Israelis have been killed and dozens wounded in a shooting, a stoning and a series of stabbings.
