A 26-year-old Israeli woman has been stabbed to death in the occupied West Bank, hours after another knife attack wounded a soldier in Tel Aviv.
The latest incident occurred near the Alon Shvut Jewish settlement. The assailant was shot by a security guard.
A Palestinian from the West Bank city of Nablus has been arrested in connection with the attack in Tel Aviv.
The stabbings come at a time of heightened tension between Israel and the Palestinians.
At the weekend, Israeli Arabs threw stones at police in mainly Arab towns in Israel after police shot dead a young Arab man, who had attacked them with a knife.
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has vowed to crack down on the violence.
‘Serious condition’
Monday’s West Bank attack took place at the entrance to the Alon Shvut settlement.
The attacker tried to run over people in his car, hit a concrete barrier then got out of the vehicle, reports said.
He then stabbed the woman along with two other Israelis at a bus stop. The two injured men were taken to hospital.
The attacker was shot several times by a security guard and was taken from the scene in a serious condition, emergency services said.
Earlier reports had said the woman was a 14-year-old girl.
The attack took place close to where three Israeli students were abducted and killed by Palestinian militants in June, an incident which led to the revenge killing in Jerusalem of a Palestinian teenager by Jewish extremists.
Tensions then escalated into a 50-day conflict between Israel and Palestinian Islamist group Hamas in Gaza.
Deteriorating security
Monday’s earlier incident in Tel Aviv took place at a busy train station and was described by police as a “terror attack”.
The soldier was critically wounded.
BBC Middle East correspondent Kevin Connolly says there has been no real pattern to the recent spate of attacks – the attackers appear to have acted suddenly, meaning there is no advance intelligence to forewarn the authorities.
In two other attacks in the past three weeks, Palestinian militants rammed vehicles into pedestrians in Jerusalem, killing four people. Both attackers were shot dead.
A Palestinian suspected of shooting and wounding a prominent right-wing activist, Rabbi Yehuda Glick, in Jerusalem at the end of last month was also shot dead in a gun battle with Israeli police.
Our correspondent says that many Israelis feel the security situation has been deteriorating, with the summer conflict in Gaza, the dispute over rights of prayer at a holy site in Jerusalem and continuing Jewish settlement in East Jerusalem all factors in a worsening atmosphere.
Source: BBC