Israeli soldiers aim their weapons towards Palestinian protesters during clashes at the main entrance of the West Bank city of Bethlehem, on Monday.

Palestinian Foreign Minister Riad Al-Malki on Monday accused Israel of seeking to spark “a third Intifada,” as violence again flared in Jerusalem, the West Bank and the Gaza Strip.

“(Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin) Netanyahu wants to instigate a third Intifada. He wants to avoid problems that he is facing in the political and diplomatic arena, where he has failed miserably,” Malki told AFP in Vienna. Malki said Netanyahu had committed a “grave mistake” by “violating the status quo” of East Jerusalem’s Al-Aqsa compound, one of Islam’s holiest sites.

“Netanyahu is widening the scope of the conflict from a political one with the Palestinians — which always has a possibility of finding a political solution — to an unlimited war with Muslims around the world,” Malki warned.

Calling on Israel to act “according to international law,” he said there was nevertheless still “a possibility to contain” the crisis.

Meanwhile, Israeli paramilitary police shot dead a Palestinian at an entrance to Jerusalem’s walled Old City, saying he had tried to stab an officer on patrol during the worst spell of street violence for several years.

A Palestinian passerby disputed the police account, saying he had seen police shout at the man, then shoot him four times. “I saw no knife on him,” Hussam Wshah, 66, told Reuters.

Four Israelis and 24 Palestinians, including eight children, have died in 12 days of bloodshed, fueled in part by Muslim anger over increasing Jewish visits to Al-Aqsa compound in Jerusalem.

Wshah, a Palestinian resident of East Jerusalem, said he witnessed the events from several meters away. “The young man was walking when they shouted at him. He may not have heard them, and they fired directly at him four times and he fell to the ground,” Wshah told Reuters.

Separately, Israeli police say a Palestinian woman lightly wounded a cop in a stabbing attack in Jerusalem. The officer shot and wounded the woman, whose condition was not known.

Related articles across the web

• Bassam Eid. The Palestinian human rights advocate that opposes boycotts
• Israel to allow more exports from Gaza
• Wholesale produce price hikes reach store shelves
• Humans of Palestine
• 7 Palestinians, 4 Israeli Policemen Wounded in East Jerusalem, West Bank Clashes - Haaretz