New York officer shoots dead attacker on camera after Jewish student stabbed at Brooklyn's Chabad 770

The moment a man was fatally shot by New York police after stabbing a Jewish student at the headquarters of the orthodox Chabad Hasidic movement in New York City has been captured on camera.

Police were called at 770 Eastern Parkway in Brooklyn at around 2am local time, after reports that a 22-year-old yeshiva student had been attacked and wounded.

Footage recorded inside the study hall of the building hosting the headquarters of the Jewish outreach group, Chabad-Lubavitch, shows the tense confrontation between police officers and the knife-wielding suspect that ensued.

The suspect is seen seemingly agitated as he wanders around the desks, while several orthodox Jews calmly confront him, trying to persuade the man to drop the blade and leave.

"You want me to kill you?" the attacker asks, with a strong accent.

A minute into the video a policeman pointing a gun at the suspect enters the frame.

"No, no, no... officer, he wants to leave," an orthodox Jew says, trying to defuse the situation. "Don't shoot, put the knife down," the man tells the suspect.

After initial resistance the suspect leaves the knife on a desk, but as the policeman puts away his gun and closes in to proceed to the arrest, the man grabs the blade and starts walking away.

Other officers intervene and after several warnings to "drop the knife" the suspect is shot.

The student, identified as Levi Rosenblat, from Israel, reportedly suffered from light stab wounds at the head, neck and abdomen.

Motives for the attack were not immediately clear.

A Chabad spokesman told Israeli Army Radio he believed it was not an anti-Semitic incident.

"Incidents like these happen in Brooklyn every 15 minutes," he said.

Others claimed the student was attacked because of his religion.

"The stabbing of a Jew in the Chabad house is part of the significant uptick in violent anti-Semitism in France, Belgium, Europe as a whole, and of course, the United States," Yaakov Hagoel, head of the Department for Activities in Israel and Countering Anti-Semitism at the World Zionist Organization told Ynet.

In 2008, six Jews were killed as Pakistani gunmen stormed a Chabad-Lubavitch centre in the Indian city of Mumbai during a 60-hour attack across the city.

The Brooklyn incident came as the US has witnessed nationwide protests over the police's perceived excessive use of force against African-Americans.

New York City, in particular, was left scarred by another video showing a the fatal arrest of a black man, Eric Garner, 43, who suffered a heart attack and died after being forcibly subdued by a white office Daniel Pantaleo, with a banned choke-hold.

A grand jury decision not to charge Pantaleo over the incident triggered indignation and demonstrations.