World Bulletin / News Desk

A Palestinian man was shot dead on Monday after allegedly trying to stab an Israeli police officer in Jerusalem. 

Israeli police spokesperson Micky Rosenfeld said the man had been shot after pulling a knife out near the Old City of Jerusalem’s Lion's Gate, the site of several previous knife attacks. 

Palestine’s Ma'an news agency reported that the man had been shot multiple times by Israeli security forces. 

According to figures provided by the Palestinian Health Ministry, Monday’s death brings the total number of Palestinians killed by Israeli security forces in October to 25. 

A recent wave of Palestinian knife attacks in Jerusalem and Israel has prompted the Israeli authorities to step up security, with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu ordering the deployment 16 battalions of the paramilitary Border Police. 

Jerusalem's teeming Old City, in particular, has seen a significant increase in the presence of security forces, with troops stationed on rooftops and at numerous checkpoints throughout the city, especially near the homes of Israeli settlers. 

Recent days have also seen frequent clashes in the occupied West Bank and East Jerusalem between Palestinian youth and Israeli security forces, who typically respond with teargas, rubber-coated bullets and live fire. 

Human Rights Watch (HRW) on Sunday released a statement saying that the use of live ammunition against protesters, unless in self-defense, was unlawful.

The group made the assertion after one of its researchers was struck by a rubber bullet during a protest in the West Bank.

“Indiscriminate or deliberate firing on observers and demonstrators who pose no imminent threat violates the international standards to which the Israeli security forces are bound,” HRW Executive Director Kenneth Roth said.

Hanan Ashrawi, a senior Palestinian Liberation Organization official, accused Israel on Sunday of inciting violence against Palestinians, citing recent calls by Jerusalem Mayor Nir Barkat for all Jewish Israelis to carry licensed firearms. 

“Israel is provoking violence in Jerusalem and creating a situation of instability as cover to exercise control over the Al-Aqsa Mosque [Islam's third holiest site], transform the character of Jerusalem, annex more Palestinian land and step up its illegal settlement-building activities,” she said. 

After a Sunday cabinet meeting, Netanyahu said the Al-Aqsa Mosque was at the center of the violence, going on to assert that recent Palestinian knife attacks were a result of “incitement” by Palestinian groups.

Netanyahu also called for an investigation of Hanin Zoabi, a Palestinian lawmaker in Israel’s parliament who reportedly called for a popular Palestinian uprising in a recent interview with a Hamas-linked publication.