A teenager has died and at least 18 others have been hurt after two explosions near bus stops in Jerusalem, in what police said were suspected attacks by Palestinians.

The first blast occurred near a bus stop on the edge of the city, where many commuters gather during rush hour. The second detonation took place in Ramot, a neighbourhood in the city’s north.

The victim was identified as 15-year-old Aryeh Shechopek, who was heading to a Jewish seminary when the blast went off, according to a notice announcing his death.

The apparent attacks came as Israeli-Palestinian tensions are high, following months of Israeli raids in the occupied West Bank prompted by a spate of deadly attacks against Israelis that killed 19 people. There has been a surge in Palestinian attacks in recent weeks.

The violence also comes as former Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu holds coalition talks after national elections and is likely to form what is expected to be Israel’s most right-wing government.

Police said their initial findings showed that explosive devices were placed at the two sites. The twin blasts occurred amid the buzz of rush hour traffic and police closed part of a main highway leading out of the city, where the first explosion went off.

Video from shortly after the first blast showed debris strewn along the pavement as the wail of ambulances blared.

Yosef Haim Gabay, a medic who was at the scene when the first blast occurred, told Israeli Army Radio:

“It was a crazy explosion. There is damage everywhere here.

“I saw people with wounds bleeding all over the place.”

While Palestinians have carried out stabbings, car rammings and shootings in recent years, bombings have become very rare since the end of a Palestinian uprising nearly two decades ago.

The Islamic militant Hamas, which rules the Gaza Strip and once carried out suicide bombings against Israelis, praised the perpetrators of the attacks, calling it a heroic operation, but stopped short of claiming responsibility.

Hamas spokesman Abd al-Latif al-Qanua said: “The occupation is reaping the price of its crimes and aggression against our people.”

Itamar Ben-Gvir, an extremist legislator who has called for the death penalty for Palestinian attackers and who is set to become the minister in charge of police under Mr Netanyahu, said the attack gave him the impetus to take a tougher stance on Palestinian attackers.

“It’s time to take a hard line against terrorists, it’s time to make order,” he tweeted.

More than 130 Palestinians have been killed in Israeli-Palestinian fighting in the West Bank and east Jerusalem this year, making 2022 the deadliest year since 2006. The Israeli army said most of the Palestinians killed have been militants.

However, stone-throwing youths protesting against the incursions and others not involved in confrontations have also been killed.

At least five more Israelis have been killed in Palestinian attacks in recent weeks.

A Georgian-Israeli billionaire has found an innovative solution to the Gaza Strip’s chronic water crisis.

Michael Mirilashvili wants to deliver hundreds of generators that produce drinking water out of thin air.

His company, Watergen, sent a machine to a Gaza hospital last week in a rare case of Israeli-Palestinian co-operation in the Hamas-ruled enclave.

Gaza’s water situation is dire. Since the 2007 Hamas takeover of the crowded Palestinian territory, Gaza’s 2 million people have endured a crippling border blockade by Israel and Egypt that froze virtually all trade and most travel.

The 13-year-old lockdown, along with three Israel-Hamas wars, has produced chronic power cuts and damaged Gaza’s infrastructure, contributing to water contamination.

Gaza relies on an aquifer as its main source of potable water. But over-extraction has allowed sea water to seep in, rendering 97% of the area’s water undrinkable.

Mr Mirilashvili told the AP news agency he wants to send more water generators to Gaza “because they are our neighbours and it’s a great pity to look at them suffering from such severe water shortages”.

He spoke days after one of his machines was installed on the roof of the Al-Rantisi Medical Centre in Gaza City.

Just a day after delivery, the generator, a large blue cube roughly the size of a vending machine, began producing cold, clean water for the hospital’s paediatric cancer ward.

Functioning like a dehumidifier, the machine extracts moisture from the air and converts it into drinking water.

The machine sent to the Gaza hospital is a medium-sized model and generates about 800 litres a day.

Watergen says its largest generators can provide clean drinking water to thousands of people. The company has also developed a new consumer version for home use.

Watergen’s technology was initially developed for military use in 2009, but it shifted gears to civilian markets after Mr Mirilashvili bought the company in 2017.

Mr Mirilashvili, who was born in Georgia, controls a vast business empire that has included casinos, hotels, oil, real estate and Russia’s largest social network.

He donated the generator to the hospital after he was approached by Jerusalem-based Palestinian businessman Fayez Husseini, a former chief executive of Palestinian mobile phone company Wataniya.

Mr Husseini said for this project, Israeli authorities gave quick approval to move the generator across the border. Although there were no dealings with Hamas authorities in Gaza, he said he did not expect any trouble there either.

“I think both sides need to take electricity and drinking water off the table,” he said. “This should not be part of politics.”

An Israeli man convicted of murdering a Palestinian teenager in Jerusalem, a crime that helped trigger the 2014 Gaza war, was sentenced on Tuesday to life in prison.

Jerusalem District Court sentenced Yosef Haim Ben-David, who organised the killing of 16-year-old Mohammed Abu Khudair, to life, which in Israel usually means around 25 years, and an additional 20 years for other counts, to be served consecutively.

Two Jewish youths who helped Ben-David abduct the teen, who was bludgeoned, strangled and burned alive, were sentenced in February, one to life imprisonment and the other to 21 years.

All three defendants had confessed and said the July 2, 2014, murder was revenge for the killing days earlier of three Israeli youths by the Hamas Islamist group in the occupied West Bank.

Ben-David, 30, had lodged an insanity plea that held up his formal conviction and sentencing. After receiving psychological assessments, the court ruled he “fully understood his actions” and found him guilty last month.

Abu Khudair’s killing raised tensions, and a seven-week Israeli offensive against the Hamas-run Gaza Strip began on July 8, 2014, after cross-border Palestinian rocket attacks and an Israeli roundup of suspected militants in the West Bank.