JERUSALEM • Israeli police shot two Palestinians who stabbed a resident of a town near Jerusalem yesterday, in a wave of violence that was the focus of talks later in the day between United States Secretary of State John Kerry and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.

A day before, Germany insisted that it was responsible for the Holocaust, after Mr Netanyahu claimed that a Palestinian leader had told the Nazis to kill Europe's Jews.

A police spokesman said the Palestinians were seriously wounded in the incident and the man they attacked at a bus stop in the town of Beit Shemesh was also wounded. All three were taken to hospital.

Nine Israelis have been killed in Palestinian stabbings, shootings and vehicle attacks since the start of this month, while 48 Palestinians, including 24 attackers, have been killed by Israeli forces in response.

As Israeli security forces and civilians become ever more jittery, a Jewish seminary student mistaken for an attacker was shot dead by soldiers on Wednesday at a busy junction in Jerusalem, police said.

An Eritrean migrant was shot by a security guard and beaten by an angry crowd of Israelis in the town of Beersheba on Sunday. He died in hospital of his wounds. Four suspects said to have joined in the attack were due to appear in court yesterday.

Mr Kerry met Mr Netanyahu in Berlin, where the Israeli leader is on an official visit.

In a speech on Tuesday, Mr Netanyahu suggested that Adolf Hitler was not planning to exterminate the Jews until he met Palestinian nationalist Haj Amin al-Husseini, the grand mufti of Jerusalem, in 1941.

But Mr Netanyahu on Wednesday backtracked on the claim.

Chancellor Angela Merkel, who hosted him for talks on Wednesday, stressed: "Germany abides by its responsibility for the Holocaust."

REUTERS, AGENCE FRANCE-PRESSE