JERUSALEM: Israeli security forces shot dead two Palestinians who had gone on a stabbing spree along a popular walkway in Jerusalem on Wednesday in what police described as a terrorist attack.

A wave of violence in Israel and the Israeli-occupied West Bank which began almost three months ago has shown no sign of dying down and has sparked concern of wider escalation, a decade after the last Palestinian uprising subsided.

Wednesday’s stabbings took place right outside the Jaffa Gate, one of the main entrances to Jerusalem’s walled Old City.

“Paramilitary border policewomen saw terrorists armed with knives stabbing a man,” Israeli police spokeswoman Luba Samri said. “They fired toward the terrorists and neutralized them.” She added that the two Palestinians were killed.

Three people were seriously wounded in the incident, the Israeli ambulance service said.

Police was investigating a video which had surfaced on social media which appeared to show a man beating one of the shot assailants with a pole, Jerusalem police spokesman Asi Aharoni told Army Radio.

Meanwhile, an Israeli who was shot, apparently by stray police fire, in the course of the stabbing attack in Jerusalem died of his wounds later, a hospital statement said.

“The critically injured gunshot victim has died of his injury,” Shaarei Tzedek hospital said in a statement.

The Shin Bet internal security agency said that it had arrested a group of 25 Palestinians in recent weeks for planning bombing and suicide attacks against Israelis.

The agency claimed most of the suspects were students at Abu Dis university in the West Bank who were recruited by Hamas operatives.