In three attacks that took place in Jerusalem, Petah Tikva in the central part of the country and Jaffa near Tel Aviv, within just two hours this afternoon and tonight, one American tourist was killed and 13 people were wounded.
The Jaffa incident in which an American tourist was killed followed a gun attack in Jerusalem and a knife attack in Petah Tikva in central Israel.
The attacker came to the port of Jaffa, where he first stabbed three people. He then continued to run towards a restaurant, attacking other people along the way, according to Israeli media. When he tried to run away in the direction of Tel Aviv, the police killed him.
At that time, US Vice President Joseph Biden was visiting the Peres Center for Peace, located about two kilometers from the place where the first knife attack took place.
Earlier, a Palestinian assailant opened fire with a rifle at police officers near Herod's Gate in Jerusalem's Old City, seriously injuring one police officer. Then he started to run and the border police officers chased him, and he shot at them and seriously wounded another one. Other officers returned fire and killed him.
The attacker was identified as Fuad Tamimi (25) from Isaviya in East Jerusalem. The victims were taken to hospital and one is in a life-threatening condition.
The initial investigation into the Petah Tikva attack indicated that an ultra-Orthodox Jew was entering a liquor store when a young Palestinian attacked him from behind with a knife and stabbed him in the upper body. The store owner and the wounded man managed to wrest the knife from the attacker, pushed him to the floor and killed him.
Earlier today, a Palestinian woman tried to attack police officers with a knife in Jerusalem's Old City. The officers then shot and killed her.
These are the latest incidents in five months of violence. They coincided with the arrival of Biden on a two-day visit to Israel as part of his Middle East tour. He is scheduled to meet with Israeli and Palestinian leaders.
Biden came a day after the Israeli media announced that Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu will not go on a planned visit to the USA, because a meeting with President Barack Obama has not been arranged.
The White House then announced that it was surprised by the cancellation of the visit, which it learned from the media, because one of the dates for the meeting proposed by Netanyahu's cabinet had been accepted. Netanyahu was scheduled to address a conference of the pro-Israel lobby of the American Jewish Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC) in Washington during that visit.
Hamas praised the attacks
The Palestinian radical organization Hamas praised the wave of attacks that took place in Israel today, stressing that it is a natural reaction and that Palestinians have the right to fight the occupation with all available means, Israeli media reported.
Hamas spokesman Hassan Badran also called on various Palestinian factions to "join the struggle of the Palestinian youth who chose to go and carry out attacks in the heart of Tel Aviv and Jerusalem."
In the next few hours, the Israeli army will close the villages in the West Bank where the two attackers came from, according to Israeli media.
Opposition politicians sharply criticized Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's government's response to the attacks.
Former Justice Minister Tzipi Livni, one of the leaders of the center-left Zionist Union party, warned that "the terrorist wave will not subside on its own and that the visit of US Vice President Joseph Biden is an opportunity to reduce the flames."
The leader of the nationalist party Israel Our Home, Avigdor Lieberman, said that the wave of attacks was the result of Netanyahu and Ya'alon's (Israeli Defense Minister Moshe Ya'alon) anti-terrorism policy.
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