A Palestinian attacker fatally stabbed two people in a Tel Aviv office building on Thursday, police said, raising to 16 the number of Israelis who have died, along with 79 Palestinians, in a wave of violence over the past seven weeks.

A police spokeswoman said the assailant was apprehended and that he had attacked worshippers who gathered for afternoon prayers in a shop that sells Jewish religious items in the building. A third person was wounded, she said.

Police say 48 of the 79 Palestinians killed in recent weeks died at the scene of attacks on Israelis and most of the rest died in violent protests in the occupied West Bank and near the Gaza border.

Palestinian allegations that Israel was trying to alter the religious status quo at a Jerusalem holy site, known to Muslims as the Noble Sanctuary, where al-Aqsa mosque stands, and to Jews as Temple Mount, have partly fueled the violence.