Israeli police kill rabbi shooting suspect

File photo: Jewish activist Yehuda Glick walks down a street in Jerusalem.

• Rabbi Yehuda Glick has been shot and hospitalized in serious condition


• Police say they shot and killed a suspect in the shooting after he fired at them

(CNN) -- Police shot and killed a suspect in the drive-by shooting of a rabbi but will keep the Temple Mount in Jerusalem's Old City closed Thursday "to prevent disturbances."

An Israeli counterterror unit surrounded the house of the unnamed suspect in the shooting of controversial activist Rabbi Yehuda Glick, police spokesman Mickey Rosenfeld said on Twitter on Wednesday night.

He said the man opened fire on police, who shot and killed him.

Glick is an advocate of Jewish access to Muslim holy sites. After he gave a presentation in Jerusalem on Wednesday night, a man on a motorcycle shot him.

Rosenfeld described the attack on Glick as an "attempted assassination." The rabbi was hospitalized in serious condition.

The Temple Mount is said to have hosted a series of sacred events.

Rabbinic sages say that God gathered dust from the spot to create Adam, the first man, before setting him loose in the Garden of Eden.

Jewish tradition holds that the Temple Mount also contains Mount Moriah, where Abraham, the Hebrew patriarch, is said to have nearly sacrificed his son -- under God's orders -- before an angel intervened.

Later, Israeli King Solomon constructed the first Jewish temple on the mount, including the Holy of Holies, a room that kept the Ark of the Covenant, which was said to contain the tablets on which God wrote the Ten Commandments.

CNN's Michael Schwartz and Daniel Burke contributed to this report.