Israeli police shoot two Palestinian girls

A Palestinian girl was killed and another seriously injured after Israeli forces shot them at Jerusalem's Mahane Yehuda market on Monday morning, the Palestinian health ministry said in a statement.

The two girls, 14 and 16, have not been identified yet.

An Israeli police officer shot the girls after they allegedly stabbed a man with scissors near the market, according to police spokesperson Luba Samri.

"An officer who observed the event approached, fired accurately and neutralised the terrorists," she added.

The alleged stabbing was the latest in a wave of similar attacks since 1 October, leaving nearly 90 Palestinians dead, including one Arab Israeli, as well as 16 Israelis, an American and an Eritrean.

The attacks were originally focused in and around Jerusalem but had shifted to the occupied West Bank, particularly in and around the flashpoint city of Hebron.

Monday's stabbings were the first attack in Jerusalem in nearly two weeks.

Arrest in the West Bank

Meanwhile in the West Bank, Israeli forces arrested two members of Palestinian prisoner Rabie Atta Jebril's family from their home in Bethlehem on Monday morning, the Palestinian Prisoners' Society said in a statement.

The Israeli forces reportedly stormed the Jebril family home in the early morning to arrest the prisoner's mother, 68, but the family refused, as she was ill and disabled.

The security forces then told her daughter, 24, to accompany her to the Rachel's Tomb checkpoint later that day.

The two women are currently being interrogated by the Israeli security authorities.