"Police officers spotted a man who aroused their suspicions and approached him to check," she said. "The terrorist pulled out a knife and tried to stab the policeman and was quickly killed by police gunfire."
The Palestinian health ministry in the occupied West Bank indicated that the dead man was a Palestinian whose identity was not yet known.
A wave of violence since the start of October has claimed the lives of 132 people on the Palestinian side, 19 Israelis, an American and an Eritrean.
Yesterday, Israeli border guards shot dead a Palestinian woman who tried to ram a car into them in the West Bank, shortly after a Palestinian was killed in clashes with Israeli forces near the border with the Gaza Strip.