A Palestinian woman said to be the mother of a man killed last year attempted to stab Israeli police officers with scissors at the entrance to Jerusalem’s Old City on Wednesday before being shot dead, officials said.

The woman pulled the scissors on the security force members at the entrance to Damascus Gate but was shot dead before she was able to stab anyone, a police spokeswoman said in a statement.

A police image showed the woman with the scissors in the air seeking to stab the police. Photos posted on social media showed the middle-aged woman lying face down after the attack outside the gate, a main entrance to the Old City. A number of other entrances to the Old City, a key tourist attraction, were also briefly sealed off.

The incident came ahead of the week-long Jewish holiday of Passover, beginning on 10 April, during which security in Jerusalem is often increased.

The Palestinian health ministry identified the dead woman as Siham Nimr, 49, from the Shuafat refugee camp in east Jerusalem. The Palestinian official news agency said Nimr was the mother of Mustafa Nimr, a 27-year-old shot dead by Israeli police in September.

Police initially claimed he was an attacker but later admitted that was untrue and that he and his cousin Ali had merely tried to evade a police spot check near Shuafat while driving. Ali was later charged with manslaughter, with prosecutors saying his erratic driving made officers shoot.

A wave of violence that broke out in October 2015 has claimed the lives of 258 Palestinians, 40 Israelis, two Americans, one Jordanian, an Eritrean and a Sudanese national, according to an AFP count.

Most of the Palestinians killed were carrying out knife, gun or car-ramming attacks, according to Israeli authorities. Others died during protests, clashes or in Israeli air raids on the Gaza Strip. Violence has subsided in recent months, despite sporadic attacks.

Human rights groups have accused Israeli security forces of using excessive force to subdue attackers in certain cases, most of which have been carried out by single assailants, many of them young. Reviews by the army of two fatal shootings of attackers in October found that the use of deadly force could have been avoided.