JERUSALEM: Israeli police shot and killed a man who they alleged tried to snatch an officer’s gun at an entrance to a Jerusalem holy site early Saturday, raising fears of further violence during a time of heightened tensions at the flashpoint compound.

The police said the slain man was 26-year-old Mohammed Alasibi from Hura, a Bedouin Arab village in southern Israel.

Palestinian worshippers at the entrance to the site had a different account, saying that police shot the man at least 10 times after he tried to prevent them from harassing a woman who was on her way to the holy compound.

Authorities said that officers detained the man for questioning outside the sacred compound home to Al-Aqsa Mosque in the heart of Jerusalem’s Old City — the third holiest shrine in Islam.

Police said Alasibi attacked one of the officers and grabbed his gun, managing to fire two bullets into the air as the officer tried to restrain him. Police described the incident as an attempted terrorist attack and said they shot and killed him in self-defence.

Noureddine, a 17-year-old who lived in the neighbourhood said he saw Alasibi confront police who had stopped a female worshipper on her way to Al-Aqsa Mosque.

He said some kind of disagreement broke out between Alasibi and the officers before he heard a dozen shots ring out. Palestinian media widely reported that Alasibi was a doctor who had studied medicine recently in Romania.