At least three Palestinians killed and two Israelis critically wounded as violence continues in occupied territories.

A series of stabbing attacks have resulted in the deaths of three alleged Palestinian attackers and resulted in several more Israelis and Palestinians being injured as violence intensifies in Israel and the occupied Palestinian territories.

Writing on Twitter, Israeli police spokesman Micky Rosenfeld said that four apparent stabbing incidents took place in Jerusalem on Monday.

The spokesman said a Palestinian assailant was shot dead on Monday night after stabbing an Israeli soldier on a bus entering Jerusalem. The soldier was lightly injured.

The Palestinian Authority’s Ministry of Health confirmed the event on Facebook, saying that the killed man’s “identity is still unknown”.

Al Jazeera’s Andrew Simmons, reporting from West Jerusalem, said police announced later that the man was shot dead after reaching for an officer’s gun, which came out of its holster during the confrontation on the bus.

Israeli police said a Palestinian man was shot dead on the bus after reaching for an officer’s gun [AP]

On Monday afternoon, a stabbing attack in Pisgat Zeev, a Jewish-only settlement in occupied East Jerusalem, resulted in two victims being seriously injured. “An Israeli teenager was seriously injured and hospitalised, as was a 24-year-old [Israeli] man,” Rosenfeld told Al Jazeera.

Police shot and killed one of the alleged Palestinian attackers and injured the other.

Earlier in the day, a Palestinian woman was detained and taken to the hospital after reportedly stabbing an officer near a police station. Just hours before that, Mustafa Adel al-Khatib, an 18-year-old Palestinian, was fatally shot while trying to stab an Israeli border police officer.

Protests over Israeli settlement expansion, harsh restrictions and Israeli incursions into the al-Aqsa Mosque compound in East Jerusalem have boiled over into violence earlier this month.

Wave of violence

As unrest continues to spread, at least 27 Palestinians, among them suspected attackers, have been killed by Israeli forces since October 3. Another 1,990 have been injured, according to the Palestinian Authority’s ministry of health.

Since the beginning of the month, four Israelis have been killed and at least 67 injured in attacks by Palestinians.

On Sunday, a Palestinian teenager was shot dead by Israeli forces during clashes at a checkpoint near Ramallah city.

Ahmad Sharaka, 13, was shot in the neck with live ammunition when Israeli forces opened fire on Palestinian demonstrators outside Beit El, a Jewish-only settlement near Ramallah.

His funeral was held at Al Jalazon refugee camp later on Monday.

Heavy clashes took place on Sunday in cities and villages across the occupied West Bank, including East Jerusalem, after weeks of protests prompted by tensions over al-Aqsa Mosque compound.

Frustration has boiled over into violence as Israel continues to build Jewish-only settlements throughout the West Bank in defiance of international law.

Benjamin Netanyahu, Israel’s prime minister, has blamed the violence on incitement by groups including the Islamic Movement, which runs religious and educational services for Muslims in Israel.

Netanyahu is seeking sanctions on the group, which has led a campaign accusing Israel of plotting to take over the sacred Old City compound revered by both Jews and Muslims, a claim Israel denies.

Israeli police said they had arrested a local leader of the Islamic Movement in the Bedouin Arab town of Rahat in southern Israel who was suspected of organising a group of protesters who vandalised security cameras and other property in the town on Friday.