One person seriously wounded in Jerusalem stabbing attack - police

JERUSALEM (Reuters) - One man was critically wounded and another person slightly hurt in a stabbing attack in Jerusalem's Old City on Wednesday, Israeli police said.

A police statement said the suspect, a 17-year-old from East Jerusalem, had been apprehended.

Violence has swept across the occupied West Bank over the past 18 months, with occasional attacks in Jerusalem.

Rafi HaCohen, an emergency responder who happened to be nearby when the attack took place, said he found a man in his 50s on the ground, bleeding profusely from multiple stab wounds.

Israel's Channel 12 showed images of bloodstains on the sidewalk outside the Old City gate which is a main entry for tourists. Police had closed off the area around the attack.

A spokesperson for the Islamist Hamas group that controls Gaza praised the attack but did not claim the attacker as a member. "The operation in Jerusalem proves that all crimes conducted by the occupation will not stop the escalating resistance," spokesperson Mohammad Hamada said.

(Reporting by Emily Rose, Nidal Al-Mughrabi; Editing by Andrew Cawthorne)