A fatal Israeli police shooting of an unarmed Palestinian man in Jerusalem last weekend has led to a government apology and protests comparing the case to the killing of George Floyd in Minneapolis.

Eyad Hallaq, 32, was on his way to a school for special needs students in the historic Old City of Jerusalem on May 30 when police shouted, "terrorist!"

"Policing in Jerusalem and in particular in the Old City is a particularly complex task that involves complex decisions and the risk of life," the police said in a statement following the shooting.

Aviad Friedman, an Israeli father of a child with autism, paid Hallaq's father a condolence visit, despite friends warning him against traveling alone to a Palestinian neighborhood of Jerusalem.

"I do not think [the Hallaq killing] is similar to the incident in Minneapolis," he wrote, citing the stress Israeli police face in Jerusalem.