Israel has started setting up roadblocks in Palestinian neighborhoods in East Jerusalem and deploying soldiers in cities across the country to try to combat the worst surge of violence in months.

Palestinian officials condemned the security measures - the most serious clampdown in the Jerusalem area since a Palestinian uprising a decade ago - as collective punishment.

Israel's security cabinet authorized the crackdown hours earlier in an overnight session after Palestinians armed with knives and a gun killed three Israelis and wounded several others yesterday.

Seven Israelis and 30 Palestinians, including children and assailants, have been killed in two weeks of bloodshed in Israel, Jerusalem and the occupied West Bank.

The violence has been partly triggered by Palestinians' anger over what they see as increased Jewish encroachment on Jerusalem's Al-Aqsa mosque compound, also revered by Jews as the site of two destroyed Jewish temples.

There is also deep-seated frustration with the failure of years of peace efforts to achieve Palestinian statehood and end Israeli settlement building in the West Bank and East Jerusalem.

Israeli paramilitary border police used their vehicles to block an exit at the edge of Jabel Mukabar, an East Jerusalem neighborhood and home to three Palestinians who carried out deadly attacks against Israelis on Tuesday.