Two Israeli police officers were injured on Saturday when a Palestinian driver deliberately ran them down near a Jewish settlement outside Jerusalem, police said.

"Two police officers were injured, one lightly in the legs but the other more seriously in the head, when a Palestinian man drove at them deliberately in his vehicle," police spokesman Micky Rosenfeld told AFP.

He said the incident occurred at the Hezmeh checkpoint near a Jewish settlement in the West Bank north of Jerusalem.

"The 37-year-old Palestinian was arrested and said when questioned that his plan had been to kill the police officers," Rosenfeld added.

He said the injured officers were taken to a Jerusalem hospital where their condition was reported as satisfactory.

Army radio said the man was from Azarya in the West Bank, and that he had run down the policemen in a Mercedes car.

Under interrogation the man said he had intended to kill the pair but later told investigators he had acted on the spur of the moment, the radio said.

Rosenfeld also told AFP on Saturday that a group of tourists had been attacked in Jerusalem by a knife-wielding man.

"On Friday, in the old city of Jerusalem, a Palestinian lightly wounded four tourists with a knife," he said. "He then tried to hide in a nearby restaurant where he was arrested by border guards.

"Investigators are continuing to question him to find out if it was a purely criminal act or one with nationalistic motives."

Thousands of tourists are thronging the old city for the annual "holy fire" ceremony over the Orthodox Easter weekend.

The news website Ynet reported that Friday's attack took place in the Via Dolorosa and that "investigators are not ruling out the possibility that it was an act of terror."

On 7 April Israeli police killed a Palestinian they said tried to drive into a checkpoint near an occupied east Jerusalem village after authorities razed the home of the man behind a bulldozer attack last year.

The incident took place shortly after police demolished the house of Hossam Dwayyat, who went on a rampage in west Jerusalem last June, killing three Israelis.

AFP

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