Israeli security forces search the scene where a shooting attack on policemen took place, March 8, 2016.AMMAR AWAD/Reuters
Palestinian attackers unleashed multiple assaults on Israeli civilians and police on Tuesday, including an attack in the ancient Mediterranean port city of Jaffa in which an assailant stabbed seven people, killing one man and wounding the others before he was shot and killed, police said.
The Jaffa assault, just one in multiple stabbing and shooting attacks Tuesday, came as Vice-President Joe Biden arrived in Israel on a two-day visit as part of a regional tour of the Mideast. Biden is to meet both Israeli and Palestinian leaders and there have been speculations he would try to revive the moribund Israeli-Palestinian peace talks.
Four Palestinian attackers were shot and killed in the day's rash of violence. It was the latest in a five-month wave of near-daily Palestinian attacks on civilians and security forces.
The violence — mainly stabbings but also shootings and car-ramming attacks — has killed 28 Israelis, not including the man slain Tuesday. His nationality wasn't immediately clear, Israeli media reported he was a Russian tourist.
At least 176 Palestinians were killed by Israeli fire during that time. Most of the Palestinians have been identified by Israel as attackers, while the rest were killed in clashes with security forces.
In the Jaffa attack, Israeli Channel 2 TV interviewed a man identified only by his first name, Yishai, who described how he confronted the Palestinian attacker.
"I was sitting down playing guitar and I heard screaming from across the street," said the man, who wore a T-shirt of the rock band Tool. "I saw a man run at me with a knife, I ran at him with the guitar and smashed it in his head. He was so stunned and didn't know what to do with himself and then started running away."
Police said the attacker continued on his stabbing spree before he was shot and killed.
In other attacks Tuesday, a Palestinian opened fire at the police near Jerusalem's Old City in the late afternoon, wounding an officer before fleeing the scene.
In the chase that followed, the Palestinian wounded another officer before he was shot and killed, police said.
A short while before that, a Palestinian followed an Israeli into a store and stabbed him in the neck in the central city of Petah Tikvah before he was shot and killed.
Earlier in the day, a Palestinian woman in her 50s who tried to stab Israeli security forces was shot and killed by officers, also in Jerusalem's Old City, police said. No Israelis were wounded in that attack
Palestinians say the violence stems from frustration at nearly five decades of Israeli rule over the West Bank and east Jerusalem. Israel says the violence is fueled by a campaign of Palestinian lies and incitement that is compounded on social media sites that glorify and encourage attacks.
Also Tuesday, Israeli security forces sealed shut the West Bank home of a Palestinian who killed an Israeli border policeman in a November car-ramming attack in the West Bank. Israel says home sealing and demolitions are an effective tool to deter attacks. Critics say the tactic amounts to collective punishment.