A stabbing attack — carried out by a “terrorist,” according to authorities — along a popular oceanfront boardwalk around Tel Aviv left an American tourist dead and 10 other people wounded not far from where U.S. Vice President Joe Biden was visiting Tuesday.
“In these moments, terror attacks are taking place in streets adjacent to us,” said former Israeli President and Prime Minister Shimon Peres during a meeting with Biden at the Peres Center for Peace.
Biden “condemned in the strongest possible terms the brutal attack” that took the life of one of his countrymen at the same time, and around the same area, that he was meeting with Peres.
“There is no justification for such acts of terror,” the vice president’s office said in a statement. “(Biden) expressed sorrow at the tragic loss of American life.”
Israeli police spokesman Micky Rosenfeld tweeted that one person was “murdered” and 10 were taken to the hospital after the attack along the Mediterranean Sea.
The “terrorist in Jaffa (was) shot dead by police,” said Rosenfeld, who said the attacker was a Palestinian from the West Bank.
Luba Samri, also with Israel police, told CNN that at least four people were stabbed near the Jaffa port and another three or more were stabbed as the attacker moved north on the boardwalk, a popular spot with shops and restaurants along the waterfront.
Police shot and killed the attacker as he tried to run away, according to Samri.
An American who lives in Tel Aviv told CNN that she was walking home from work when she saw people running toward her.
“They were shouting, ‘The terrorist, he’s stabbing people,'” said Emily Young, who is originally from Scarsdale, New York.
Young went to help a victim who had been stabbed in the eye. She put something on the wound to stop the bleeding and tried to communicate, but the Russian tourist cannot speak Hebrew or English. Young rolled him over to check for more wounds and found one in the man’s back. Young, who had some first-aid training while in the Israeli military, applied pressure to the wound.
She waited with him until emergency workers took them to the hospital.
Tuesday’s incident is among a spate of “terrorist” attacks that Israeli authorities have blamed on Palestinians, be they from the West Bank or elsewhere.
A large number of these attacks have been stabbings, though guns and cars — used to run over people — also have been used. Israeli authorities have responded, at times, with crackdowns in Palestinian areas.
Also on Tuesday, Rosenfeld reported that a “terrorist with (an) automatic weapon” opened fire in Jerusalem. Two Israeli policeman were seriously injured before the attacker was killed.
Authorities shot and killed a “female terrorist” behind an “attempted stabbing” in Jerusalem’s Old City, Rosenfeld tweeted.