A Vanderbilt University graduate student on a school trip was fatally stabbed and about a dozen other people injured by a Palestinian man in the Jaffa port area of Tel Aviv during a nearby visit by US Vice President Joe Biden, officials said.
The Texas native, identified as Taylor Force, was declared dead at a Wolfson Medical Center in Holon, the school said in a statement.
Force, who lived in Nashville, was studying at the Owen Graduate School of Management at Vanderbilt University and was killed while on a school trip, the university confirmed.
“Taylor embarked on this trip to expand his understanding of global entrepreneurship and also to share his insights and knowledge with start-ups in Israel,” Owen Graduate School of Management Chairman Nicholas Zeppos said in a statement.
“He exemplified the spirit of discovery, learning and service that is the hallmark of our wonderful Owen community. This horrific act of violence has robbed our Vanderbilt family of a young hopeful life and all of the bright promise that he held for bettering our greater world.”
Force graduated from the United States Military Academy and worked as a field artillery officer in the Army, according to an online profile on Poets and Quants.
The assailant, identified as Bashar Masalha, 22, from the West Bank town of Qalqilya, was shot dead by police as Biden was at the Peres Center for Peace — about a mile from the scene of the carnage, the sources said.
One of the victims was a pregnant woman, another was an Arab Israeli and one a Palestinian man who was living in Israel illegally, Channel 2 reported.
Israeli media footage showed the attacker running along a promenade as he tried to stab drivers stuck in traffic. One man hit the Palestinian with a guitar as he ran by.
“I was sitting down playing guitar and I heard screaming from across the street,” the man, identified as Yishai, told Channel 2. “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.”
The rampage came less than two hours after terror attacks in Jerusalem and Petah Tikva in central Israel left an Orthodox Jew and two border police officers seriously injured. The Palestinian attackers were killed.
The attacker began his rampage near the entrance to the Jaffa Port, wounding four people before fleeing on foot toward Tel Aviv and attacking others before he was gunned down.
A source from Biden’s team told the Jerusalem Post that his delegation was aware of the incident and had not altered its schedule. Biden met with former Israeli president Shimon Peres as planned during his two-day visit.
“I notified the vice president on the terrible incident that took place just a few hundred meters away from here in Jaffa,” Peres said, The AP reported. “Terror leads to nowhere.”
Biden “condemned in the strongest possible terms the brutal attack which occurred in Jaffa,” his office said. “He expressed his sorrow at the tragic loss of American life and offered his condolences to the family of the American citizen murdered in the attack, as well as his wishes for a full and quick recovery for the wounded,” the statement said.
Biden planned to also meet with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Palestinian President Mahmud Abbas on Wednesday before traveling to Jordan.
An eyewitness told Ynet news that he tried to strike the Jaffa terrorist with an aluminum rod.
“The terrorist, who was young and wearing a hoodie, came from the Jaffa Port area,” said the eyewitness, identified only as Yosef. “Once he was on the boardwalk, he attacked a tourist couple. The woman was stabbed several times, tried to flee and fell. The terrorist then continued to stab the man.”
Hours earlier, three Israelis were wounded in two terror attacks that occurred within minutes of each other in Jerusalem and Petah Tikva.
Yonatan Ezriyahav, 39, was moderately wounded by Abd Al-Rahman, 17, who followed him into a liquor store in Petah Tikvah, sources said. The victim and the shop owner overpowered the assailant and fatally stabbed him.
Shortly after, two Israeli Border Police officers were seriously injured by a drive-by shooter on a motorcycle who targeted security forces near Damascus Gate in the Old City of Jerusalem.
Fouad Tamimi, 25, of Issawiya in East Jerusalem, struck one officer in the head, leaving him in critical condition, and then hit another officer as he was chased, sources said.
Earlier in the day, a Palestinian woman in her 50s who tried to stab Israeli security forces was shot and killed by officers in Jerusalem’s Old City. No Israelis were wounded in that attack
Hamas spokesman Sami Abu Zuhri expressed support for the attacks.
“Hamas blesses the three heroic operations this evening, in Tel Aviv, Jerusalem, and Jaffa, and considers this proof of the failure for all these theories to abort the Intifada, which will continue until the realization of its goals,” Abu Zuhri said.
“Hamas celebrates the martyrs that have ascended through these operations, and confirms that their pure blood will, God willing, be the fuel for escalating the Intifada.”
Tel Aviv Mayor Ron Huldai noted that the stabber in Jaffa was not a resident of the mixed Arab-Jewish city.
“We know that the residents of Jaffa condemn this event,” Huldai said near the Manta Ray restaurant, where the attacker was killed.
He added that Purim events in Tel Aviv and Jaffa would take place as scheduled, despite the bloody attack.
Before the latest violence, 29 Israelis and three foreign nationals had been killed in a wave of Palestinian violence since October.
Almost 170 Palestinians have been killed – about two-thirds of them while attacking Israelis and the rest during clashes with troops.