NASHVILLE, Tenn. (AP) – A Vanderbilt University graduate student has been fatally stabbed during a school trip to Israel, according to the university’s chancellor.
Chancellor Nicholas Zeppos wrote in a letter to students, faculty and staff that graduate student Taylor Force was killed Tuesday in a stabbing attack while on the trip in Tel Aviv, Israel.
Zeppos says all other students and faculty on the trip are safe and unharmed. Zeppos called the incident a “horrific act of violence.”
Zeppos writes that Force was seeking to learn more about global entrepreneurship and startups in Israel while on the trip. He was studying at the school’s Owen Graduate School of Management. He was 28 and a West Point graduate who served tours of duty in Iraq and Afghanistan.
Stuart Force, Taylor’s father, spoke briefly with The Associated Press by phone, calling his son “a great kid.”
Zeppos says university resources are being made available for students, faculty and staff who may seek counseling.
Force was killed Tuesday when a Palestinian stabbed seven people in the ancient Mediterranean port city of Jaffa next to Tel Aviv.
The attack was just one in multiple Palestinian stabbing and shooting attacks that came as Vice President Joe Biden arrived in Israel on a two-day visit as part of a regional tour of the Mideast.
Four Palestinian attackers were shot and killed in the day’s rash of violence that wounded a dozen Israelis. It was the latest bloodshed in a five-month wave of near-daily Palestinian attacks on civilians and security forces.
Copyright 2016 The Associated Press.