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JERUSALEM, Oct. 13 (Xinhua) -- Three Israelis were killed and at least 15 were wounded in a series of attacks in Jerusalem and central Israel on Tuesday, in the gravest outbreak of Palestinian violence since the current round of unrest has started.
In two almost simultaneous attacks in Jerusalem, a pair of Palestinians boarded a bus near the Palestinian neighborhood of Jabel Mukaber and attacked passengers, police spokesman Micky Rosenfeld said.
One of the assailants was armed with a pistol and the other had a knife, Rosenfeld added.
A paramilitary border police force stormed the bus and shot both assailants, killing one of them and wounding the other.
Zaki Heler, a spokesman for the rescue services, said that two Israeli men were killed in the attack, and two women were critically wounded. Five others sustained medium-to-light injuries.
About five minutes later, a Palestinian rammed a vehicle with the logo of the national telecom company, Bezeq, into a crowd of commuters who were waiting at a bus station in another part of the city. He then went out of his vehicle, stabbing people, before he was shot dead, said police spokeswoman Luba Samri.
An Israeli man in his sixties was pronounced dead by paramedics at the scene, and three other people were treated for injuries.
Bezeq later confirmed that the assailant, a resident of Jabel Mukaber, was an employee of the company who used a company's car for the assault.
In Ra'anana, a suburb east of Tel Aviv, two separate attacks saw five people wounded, including one in a serious condition.
In both incidents, civilians managed to overpower the assailants, holding them to the ground until security forces arrived.
In one incident in Ra'anana, a taxi driver told Channel 2 TV news that he was driving his cab near the scene by chance as he spotted the attack.
The driver hit the attacker with his car to "neutralize" him, and then beaten him at his head with a club until police arrived. He said other civilians at the scene also beaten the suspect while others were trying to protect him.
Finally, the suspect was taken to hospital in a moderate-to-severe condition.
The hostilities, erupting at a time when peace prospects seem bleak, panicked Israelis and increased fears of another round of massive violence in the region.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu adjourned his cabinet for an "emergency meeting" in his office, as ministers and lawmakers urged him to put East Jerusalem under closer.
Acting Police Chief Benzi Sau said he would present at the meeting an "operational plan" to quell the unrest. Samri said Internal Security Minister Gilad Erdan is considering several immediate measures, including sealing off and isolating Palestinian neighborhoods of East Jerusalem, from which some of the attackers came.
As tensions around the country were spiking, an Israeli stabbed and lightly injured another Israeli near an IKEA store in the northern city of Kiryat Ata.
The stabber said told police that he was seeking to "avenge" the earlier attacks, and mistakenly identified a Jew of Middle Eastern origin as an Arab.
The event occurred as Hamas, a militant Palestinian movement, called on for "a day of protest against the occupation" of East Jerusalem, the West Bank and the Gaza Strip.
At the Gaza border, Israeli soldiers fired at Palestinian protesters who approached the security fence. At least five Palestinians were wounded, Palestinian media reported.
Violent clashes were also reported in Qalandia, east of Jerusalem.
The recent violence broke out last month with clashes at East Jerusalem's flashpoint al-Aqsa mosque compound and quickly spread throughout the West Bank and the Gaza Strip.
Since the beginning of the unrest, Palestinians killed five Israelis in stabbing or stoning attacks. Israelis killed at least 29 Palestinians, at least one-third of them were children, according to Palestinian officials.
Israeli police said at least 12 of the Palestinian casualties were attackers. Also, at least 1,400 Palestinians have been injured during clashes with Israeli forces or following attacks, Palestinian media reported.
