JERUSALEM (AFP) - One of two Palestinians who claimed to have been savagely beaten by a Jewish mob in east Jerusalem was still in intensive care in an Israeli hospital on Sunday, two days after the alleged attack.

Relatives of Mr Amir Shweiki, 20, said on Sunday he was being treated at Jerusalem's Hadassah Ein Kerem hospital after being attacked along with Mr Samer Mahfouz, also 20, as they walked near the Jewish settlement neighbourhood of Neve Yaakov on Friday evening.

A spokesman for the hospital told AFP that one of the men was "in intensive care but conscious and doing well" while the other was in a surgical ward. She did not identify them by name on grounds of medical confidentiality.

Police spokesman Micky Rosenfeld told AFP that the men alleged they were attacked by Jewish Israelis. "They gave official testimony that they were attacked by a number of people," he said."We're taking their claims very seriously.

"The investigation is continuing," he added. "We're still looking for suspects."

Haaretz newspaper quoted Mr Mahfouz as saying that he and Mr Shweiki were assaulted by about 12 men. "They had sticks and iron bars and they hit us over the head," he said.

Tensions between Palestinians and Israelis in annexed east Jerusalem plunged to a new low on July 2 when 16-year-old Mohammed Abu Khder was snatched from an east Jerusalem street and later found burned alive.

Police arrested six alleged Jewish extremists as suspects and on July 17 charged three, freeing the others.

At an appearance in the Jerusalem district court on Sunday, Yosef Haim Ben-David, 29, who is charged along with two minors, declared to journalists: "I am the Messiah."

In addition there have been violent Palestinian protests in and around the city as the toll of dead in Israel's Gaza Strip offensive spirals daily.