Escalating Israeli-Palestinian tensions over a highly sensitive holy site have turned into violence that killed six people: three Palestinians in street clashes in Jerusalem and three Israelis in a stabbing attack at a West Bank settlement.

A Palestinian entered a home in the Israeli settlement of Halamish in the West Bank after nightfall and stabbed three Israelis to death, the head of Israel’s rescue service said.

Earlier, three Palestinians were killed in Jerusalem amid escalating protests in the city and across Palestinian territories against new Israeli security measures at the Temple Mount/Haram al-Sharif complex.

Two died in separate incidents in Palestinian neighbourhoods in East Jerusalem after tense Friday prayers, during which thousands of Palestinians worshipped in the streets around the Old City after refusing to enter the compound – known to Muslims as the Haram al-Sharif, which houses the al-Aqsa mosque. A third died later in Ramallah.

The compound is considered the third holiest site in Islam and the most sacred for Jews, who call it Temple Mount.

The Palestinian president, Mahmoud Abbas, ordered the suspension of all official contact with Israel until it removed the metal detectors. He gave no details but current contacts are largely limited to security cooperation.



“I declare the suspension of all contacts with the Israeli side on all levels until it cancels its measures at al-Aqsa mosque and preserves the status quo,” Abbas said in a brief televised speech.

It was not immediately clear if this means long-standing security coordination between Israeli troops and Abbas’s forces will be halted.

Metal detectors were installed by Israeli police after a deadly shootout inside the compound last Friday in which three Israeli-Arab gunmen killed two Israeli policemen at the Lions’ Gate entrance, before fleeing back inside and being killed by police.

Palestinians – and the Jordanian-administered religious institution, the Waqf, which takes care of the site – say the new security controls on worshippers represent a breach of the status quo.



Friday’s events came at the end of a tense week in Jerusalem. The Israeli decision to leave the metal detectors in place was taken after calls on Thursday for the Israeli prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, to back down and remove the devices in order not to inflame the situation further.

Reporting the three Palestinian deaths on Friday, a spokesman for the Palestinian health ministry said Mohammed Abu Ranam and 17-year-old Mohammad Sharaf had been killed in the East Jerusalem neighbourhoods of At-Tur and Ras al-Amud respectively.

The ministry later reported that 17-year-old Muhammad Mahmoud Khalaf had died in hospital in Ramallah after being shot in the chest by Israeli troops during a demonstration in Abu Dis.

The clashes with Israeli security forces followed a call by the Waqf for other mosques to remain closed and for Palestinians to converge in the area around the Old City to pray.

The three Israelis stabbed to death and the fourth who was wounded were from the fenced-in West Bank settlement of Halamish. Israeli media said the three dead were all members of the same family, two men aged 60 and 40 and a woman aged 40. The wounded woman, 68, was apparently hospitalised with stab wounds to her back.

A still photo carried by Israeli television showed a kitchen floor completely red with blood. The family had sat down to a traditional Friday evening meal when the attack occurred, according to Israel Radio.



The Israeli army and media said the assailant entered the settlement after dark to carry out his attack. Israel Radio identified him as a 19-year-old Palestinian from the West Bank village of Kobar near Ramallah. It said he had been shot but his condition was not initially known.

In an additional controversial security measure, Israel restricted entry to the mosque area and Old City on Friday to men aged 50 and over and women. Police later fired stun grenades and teargas canisters toward protesters outside the Old City, while Palestinians threw stones and other objects at security forces.

Palestinian worshippers run from teargas fired by Israeli forces, after prayers outside Jerusalem’s Old City. Photograph: Ahmad Gharabli/AFP/Getty Images

Speaking to the Guardian outside the Old City’s Damascus gate, Jawad Bibis, 50, said he had crossed four checkpoints to reach the street, where he had finally prayed. “The Israelis kept asking us the same questions: where are you coming from and why don’t you pray in your own neighbourhood? It is none of their business where I pray,” he said.

His friend Daoud Anati, like many Palestinians, accused Israel of using the new metal detectors “to impose Israeli sovereignty” over the site.

The clashes took place as the Palestinian president, Mahmoud Abbas, asked the US to “intervene urgently” and compel Israel to remove the metal detectors, according to his aide, Nabil Abu Rdeneh.

Abu Rdeneh said Abbas had discussed the growing tensions in Jerusalem in a phone call with Donald Trump’s top adviser and son-in-law, Jared Kushner. The Palestinian leader told Kushner the situation was “extremely dangerous and may go out of control,” Abu Rdeneh said.

The Turkish president, Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, also discussed the issue with Abbas and called on the Israeli president, Reuven Rivlin, to press for their removal.

In an attempt to contain what have become nightly confrontations in Jerusalem this week, Israel had drafted in thousands of extra police as well as putting five additional army battalions on standby in the West Bank.

The city’s top Muslim cleric, Mohammed Hussein, told worshippers on Friday that he expected a “long test of wills” with Israel.

The tension has not been limited to Israel and the occupied Palestinian territories, with large crowds turning out to protest on Friday against the security measures in the Jordanian capital, Amman.

Thousands march through Hebron, in the West Bank, against the restrictions imposed on al-Aqsa mosque. Photograph: Anadolu Agency/Getty Images

The Haram al-Sharif/Temple Mount compound, containing the Dome of the Rock and the al-Aqsa Mosque, has long been a source of religious friction. Since Israel captured and annexed the Old City, including the compound, in the 1967 war, it has also become a symbol of Palestinian nationalism.

The decision to leave the metal detectors in place was taken as far-right members of Netanyahu’s government – which relies on religious and rightwing parties for support – had publicly urged him to keep the devices in place.

“Israel is committed to maintaining the status quo at the Temple Mount and the freedom of access to the holy places,” the security cabinet said in a statement.