Three Israelis killed in shooting on West Bank-Jordan border

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Three Israelis were killed after a Jordanian gunman opened fire on security personnel at the border crossing between Jordan and the occupied West Bank, Israel’s military said on Sunday.

The shooting is the first such incident on the border between Jordan and the West Bank since the war between Israel and Hamas in Gaza erupted last year, fanning tensions across the Middle East.

The Israeli military said the gunman had approached Allenby Bridge, also known as King Hussein Bridge, in a truck from the Jordanian side, before opening fire at Israeli forces who were operating at the crossing.

An Israeli official said the gunman was a Jordanian citizen. Jordan’s state-run Petra News Agency said he was a resident of the Al-Hussainiya area in Ma’an Governorate, a restive region in the south of the country.

Three Israeli civilians were killed in the attack, according to the military. Israel’s paramedic service said all three of the deceased were men. The assailant was shot dead by Israeli forces.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu condemned the attack, and Israel’s airports authority said that both Allenby Bridge — the only link between the West Bank and Jordan — and the land crossings between Israel and Jordan would be closed until further notice.

Israeli forces also closed the northern and southern entrances to Jericho, the closest West Bank city to the Allenby crossing, and were carrying out checks on vehicles, according to the Palestinian news agency Wafa.

Benny Gantz, the leader of one of Israel’s main opposition parties, said the incident was “another sign” that Israel needed to strengthen its “defensive line” in the Jordan valley.

Jordan’s interior ministry said the country had launched an investigation into the shooting.

Jordan became the second Arab country after Egypt to establish diplomatic relations with Israel when the two sides signed a peace treaty in 1994. The kingdom co-operates with Israel on security matters. It was part of an international coalition that helped Israel to fend off an Iranian missile barrage earlier this year.

However, the soaring Palestinian death toll from the war in Gaza, which was triggered by Hamas’s devastating October 7 attack on Israel, has strained relations between the two countries. Jordan has a large Palestinian population that has led to protests against the war.

Jordan’s King Abdullah has condemned Hamas’s attack, during which militants killed 1,200 Israelis and took about 250 hostage, according to Israeli figures.

But officials in Amman have also been fiercely critical of the devastation wrought by Israel’s retaliatory offensive in Gaza, which has so far killed more than 40,800 Palestinians, according to local health officials, and fuelled a humanitarian crisis in the coastal enclave.

Earlier this year, King Abdullah’s son, Crown Prince Hussein, decried the failure of the international community to stop the fighting, and accused the Israeli government of “escalating the situation in the West Bank as well and trying to drag the region into a regional war”.

Tensions in the West Bank have risen sharply since the start of the war in Gaza, and last week Israeli forces launched their biggest operation in the occupied territory for years.