At least seven people were wounded in Tel Aviv on Wednesday when a Palestinian man stabbed civilians on a commuter bus and in the street.

The attack marked the first such incident since a soldier was stabbed to death two months ago amid a surge of violence in Israel and the Palestinian territories.

The bus was en route to Tel Aviv University, and passengers said the man stabbed the driver and others near one of the city's busiest intersections, Reuters reported.

Police identified the assailant as a 23-year-old Palestinian from Tulkarm, a town of 50,000 in the Israeli-occupied West Bank. Photographs showed the suspect lying face down in the mud, his wrists handcuffed behind him and his jeans stained with blood.

"The terrorist had murder in his eyes," a rider named Orly said on Israel Radio.

The man alighted, ran down a street and stabbed a woman in the back on the sidewalk, security-camera footage showed. The woman collapsed, and armed prison officers who happened to be in the area chased and shot the assailant.

Four of the suspect's victims were seriously wounded, emergency responders told CNN. Others sustained light or moderate injuries, and several passengers were being treated for shock.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said the stabbing marked "the direct result of the poisonous incitement being disseminated by the Palestinian Authority against the Jews and their state."

"This same terrorism is trying to attack us in Paris, Brussels and everywhere," Netanyahu warned.

A spokesman for the Qatar-based Islamic group Hamas, which the United States has designated as a terrorist organization, meanwhile, praised the attack, the Times of Israel and Haaretz reported.

"The heroic stabbing incident against the Zionist in Tel Aviv is a daring and heroic act," Izzat al-Risheq said. "It comes as a natural response to the terrorist occupation crimes against our people."

Palestinian media published a series of "celebratory cartoons" and rejoiced at the attack, the Jerusalem Post reported. One of the drawings shows a smiling terrorist holding a bloody knife in front of a sign that reads "Occupied Tel-A-rabia," a play on the words Tel Aviv, the Israeli newspaper noted.

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