A man stabbed to death one person and wounded two others in Tel Aviv early on Tuesday in what police called the first Palestinian attack in an Israeli city since Palestinian militants declared a truce on June 29.

The motives of the attack were not immediately clear and police did not say whether the man was connected to any militant group. But the attack could threaten the fragile three-month truce which is vital to US-led peace efforts.

"We've got one civilian who was killed and another that was wounded," local police commander Yossi Sedbon told reporters on the scene in Tel Aviv, Israel's main commercial city. "The Palestinian was shot in his legs and is now under medical care."

He did not say whether the dead person was male or female. He also did not give the victim's nationality.

Police said the 23-year-old man from Arab East Jerusalem tried to enter the Tarabin open-air restaurant on a coastal promenade on the southern edge of Tel Aviv at around 1:30 am (6:30 pm EDT).

He wounded a security guard and then fled, stabbing two passersby as he ran off along the promenade. Another security guard then shot and wounded the attacker, who was taken to hospital, police said.

The assailant left a large, bloody knife in the street after the stabbings, a Reuters correspondent on the scene said.

The three-month truce declared by the main Palestinian militant groups has fueled cautious optimism that a US-backed "road map" to peace will end 33 months of Israeli-Palestinian violence.

But some rebel militant groups have pledged to ignore the cease-fire and sporadic violence has continued since the truce was announced.

The road map, drawn up by the United States, Russia, the United Nations and the European Union, sets out reciprocal steps to end the violence and establish an independent Palestinian state in 2005.

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