The attacks happened near where U.S. Vice-President Joe Biden was meeting with former Israeli President Shimon Peres. Instead, he stepped into a bloody maelstrom.
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“The kind of violence we saw yesterday, the failure to condemn it, the rhetoric that incites that violence… has to stop”, he told a morning news conference with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in Jerusalem.
The two killed Palestinians were suspected of shooting at a bus in the Israeli neighborhood of Ramot earlier on Wednesday. “They can be no justification for this hateful violence and the United States stands firmly behind Israel when it defends itself as we are defending ourselves at this moment as well”.
Biden criticized the Palestinians for failing to condemn the stabbing, after Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas’ political party posted a statement online praising the stabber. 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.
Jerusalem was on top alert as Biden met Netanyahu in the city, ahead of evening talks with Abbas in the nearby West Bank city of Ramallah.
The killings mark a spike in attacks that have persisted since last October, leaving five Palestinian attackers killed by police and the American tourist in the span of 24 hours. Romania’s President Klaus Iohannis was also on an official visit in Israel when the incident took place.
In Jerusalem, two Israeli police officers were severely injured in a drive-by shooting.
In the West Bank on Wednesday, a Palestinian with a knife attempted to stab Israeli soldiers at a checkpoint, and soldiers shot and killed him, the Israeli military said. Over the past five months Palestinians have killed at least 30 Israelis and Israeli forces have killed more than 180 Palestinians, a majority of whom were shot after allegedly carrying out attacks on Israelis. Vanderbilt student Taylor Force, 29, was on a school trip when he was killed by the attacker.
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Many analysts say Palestinian frustration with Israeli occupation and settlement building in the West Bank, the complete lack of progress in peace efforts and their own fractured leadership have fed the unrest.
