A Palestinian man stabbed and wounded an Israeli teenager in Jerusalem yesterday, just hours after another knife-wielding attacker killed an off-duty Israeli soldier and a rabbi nearby in the walled Old City, police said.

Officers shot dead both attackers and Israel’s government an-nounced it was barring Palestinians from entering the ancient district for two days, apart from people who lived there.

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s office said he would meet security chiefs to discuss more action to tackle a rising wave of violence in East Jerusalem, which includes the Old City, and the West Bank, areas that Israel captured in a 1967 war.

The bloodshed – which included a drive-by shooting that killed an Israeli couple in the West Bank on Thursday and an arson attack that killed a Palestinian toddler and his parents in July – has triggered concerns of wider escalation.

Bloodshed has triggered concerns of wider escalation

A Palestinian man stabbed and wounded a 15-year-old Israeli in Jerusalem early yesterday, police said. A policeman shot him dead, in a confrontation captured on video shown on Israeli news sites.

On Saturday, another Palestinian stabbed to death an off-duty Israeli soldier walking with his wife and children and a rabbi who rushed to their aid, on a street near Judaism’s Western Wall, police said. Israeli police fatally shot the assailant, later claimed by Palestinian militant group Islamic Jihad as a member.

Islamic Jihad’s al-Quds Brigades described Saturday’s fatal stabbing as a “heroic attack” in response to “continued Zionist aggression” at Islamic holy sites.

In violence in the West Bank city of Jenin yesterday, Israeli forces on a raid to arrest “wanted men involved in terrorist activities” were confronted by a crowd of Palestinians that threw explosives at them, the army said.