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Germany has insisted it was responsible for the Holocaust, after Israel's prime minister claimed a Palestinian leader told the Nazis to kill Europe's Jews, the BBC reported.

Chancellor Angela Merkel said Germans were "very clear in our minds" that the Nazis were responsible.

Benjamin Netanyahu had said Hitler had only wanted to expel Jews from Europe, but that Grand Mufti of Jerusalem Haj Amin al-Husseini told him: "Burn them."

His remarks have been condemned by Israeli historians and politicians.

Speaking alongside Mrs Merkel in Berlin, Mr Netanyahu said "no-one should deny that Hitler was responsible for the Holocaust".

But on Tuesday speech at the World Zionist Congress in Jerusalem, Mr Netanyahu claimed Husseini had provided the idea.

"Hitler didn't want to exterminate the Jews at the time - he wanted to expel the Jews," he told the congress.
"And Haj Amin al-Husseini went to Hitler and said: 'If you expel them, they'll all come here.'

"'So what should I do with them?' he [Hitler] asked. He [Husseini] said: 'Burn them.'"

Mr Netanyahu's comments came amid a wave of stabbing and shooting attacks - several of them fatal - on Israelis by Palestinians, and one apparent revenge stabbing by an Israeli.

Israeli security forces have also clashed with rioting Palestinians, leading to deaths on the Palestinian side. The violence has also spread to the border with Gaza.