Israeli troops shot dead a Palestinian during clashes in the West Bank today as a wave of unrest gripped the country, raising fears of a new Palestinian uprising.
The death of the 22-year-old near Hebron came as troops tried to disperse about 150 Palestinians who were hurling rocks and Molotov cocktails at passing cars close to the settlement of Kiryat Arba, the army said.
Since the current round of violence began exactly five months ago with the kidnapping of three Israeli teenagers by militants, at least 17 Palestinians have been killed in the West Bank, according to an AFP count.
Today's clashes erupted as police tightened security nationwide after a soldier and a settler were killed yesterday in separate Palestinian knife attacks, as months of unrest in Jerusalem spread across the country.
In the first incident, a Palestinian teenager stabbed a young soldier in Tel Aviv, who later died of his wounds. The assailant was arrested.
Several hours later, another knife-wielding Palestinian attacked three Israelis in the southern West Bank, killing a young woman and wounding two other people before being shot and badly wounded.
The bloodshed followed months of clashes between Israeli security forces and Palestinians in and around annexed east Jerusalem.
The unrest spread to Arab areas of Israel at the weekend after police shot dead a young Arab-Israeli during a routine arrest operation.
As Israeli commentators wondered whether the surge in violence marked the start of a third Palestinian intifada, Israeli Defence Minister Moshe Yaalon said it was too early to define recent events.
"We don't see the masses going out onto the streets (in the West Bank). What we do see in certain places is youths who are participating in popular terror, and principly, we are seeing lone attackers," he told reporters.
"So what do we call it? It's clear there is an escalation, an increase in violence but what shall we call it? Let's wait and see," he said.
But he urged the public to be alert, warning that Israel had to prepare for "the possibility of a further escalation".
The growing sense of fear on the streets has evoked memories of the second deadly Palestinian intifada, or uprising, which began in 2000.
