Five dead after Palestinian attacks

JERUSALEM -- A pair of stabbing and shooting attacks carried out by Palestinians killed five people Thursday -- three Israelis, a Palestinian and an American -- in one of the deadliest days yet in a two-month-long outburst of Israeli-Palestinian violence. In Thursday's first attack, a knife-wielding man stabbed and killed two Israelis as several of them gathered for afternoon prayers on the second floor of an office building in the Israeli commercial center of Tel Aviv. Hours later, a Palestinian motorist opened fire on a line of cars stuck in traffic in Gush Etzion, an area south of Jerusalem in the West Bank. The Israeli military said he then intentionally rammed his vehicle into a group of pedestrians. That attack killed three people, including an 18-year-old American and an Israeli. Among the dead was a Palestinian man, but police said it was not clear whether he was hit by the attacker's fire or that of Israeli forces.