Surge of violence in Israel during Biden’s trip
JERUSALEM: Two Palestinian assailants opened fire at cars in Jerusalem, wounding one man before police shot them dead yesterday, the force said, as violence surged during a visit by US Vice President Joe Biden.
Soon after, in the occupied West Bank, Israeli soldiers shot and killed a Palestinian who tried to stab them, the military said.
The attacks came a day after an American tourist was killed in Tel Aviv by a Palestinian who went on a stabbing spree on the beachfront while Biden met former Israeli president Shimon Peres blocks away.
On Twitter, Biden called it a “tragic attack” and said “there is no justification for such acts of terror”.
He criticised “the failure to condemn” the Tel Aviv attack after Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas’s political party posted a statement online praising the stabber.
The stabbing spree took place near the sea in the city of Jaffa, where Biden was meeting with Israel’s former president. Biden said his wife and grandchildren were having dinner on the beach not far from where it happened.
Since October, Palestinian stabbings, shootings and car rammings have killed 28 Israelis and two US citizens.
Israeli forces have killed at least 179 Palestinians, 121 of whom Israel says were assailants. Most others were shot dead during protests.
After several days in which the violence largely subsided, a series of attacks erupted after Biden arrived in Israel on Tuesday.
However, Israel’s national police chief said he saw no direct connection between Biden’s trip and the surge in attacks.
Biden held talks with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in Jerusalem yesterday and was due to meet Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas in the West Bank later in the day.
US officials said Biden would discuss with Netanyahu a new, 10-year military aid package to Israel currently under negotiation, as well as the situation in Syria and elsewhere in the Middle East. They warned against any expectations of a breakthrough on the Israeli-Palestinian peace process, stalled since 2014, in Biden’s meetings with Netanyahu and Abbas.
The incident in Jerusalem yesterday began when gunfire rang out near a commuter bus, although no one was hurt and the vehicle was not hit, a police spokesman said.
The past five months of bloodshed have been fuelled by various factors, including a dispute over Jerusalem’s al-Aqsa mosque and the failure of several rounds of talks to secure the Palestinians an independent state in Israeli-occupied territory.