Israel has closed all border crossings with Jordan after an armed man killed three border guards at King Hussein (Allenby) Bridge border crossing between the occupied West Bank and Jordan.
The Israeli military said the attacker arrived at the crossing from the adjoining al-Karameh town in Jordan in a truck on Sunday morning and opened fire at the border guards.
“Three Israeli civilians were pronounced dead as a result of the attack,” the military said, later clarifying to the AFP news agency that they were “working as security guards” and were not part of the army or police forces.
Private security guards operate the crossing alongside Israeli security forces stationed there. The Israeli military said that it had “eliminated” the attacker.
Later on Sunday, the Jordanian interior ministry identified the alleged assailant as Maher Dyab Hussein al-Jazi, a resident of the Husseiniya area in Jordan’s southern Ma’an governorate.
The attack marks the first of its kind along the border with Jordan since Israel’s war on Gaza began in October. It took place in a commercial cargo area under Israeli control where Jordanian trucks offload cargo entering the occupied West Bank, officials said.
The Allenby Bridge, a crucial crossing for trade between Jordan and Israel and one of five land border crossings between the two countries, has been closed, Jordan’s interior ministry added. The crossing mostly serves the more than three million Palestinians living in the West Bank.
Al Jazeera’s Nida Ibrahim, reporting from the West Bank, said the fact that the incident occurred in such an area “where a perpetrator has managed to get a weapon inside and kill three people is considered a very big security breach”.
The shooting came days after Israeli forces withdrew from the West Bank city of Jenin following 10 days of deadly raids that saw the destruction of homes, roads and water facilities. More than 30 Palestinians were killed.
Israel has killed more than 600 people and arrested 10,000 others as part of its intensified operations in the West Bank since October. Its military offensive in Gaza, which has killed more than 40,000 Palestinians, has drawn global condemnation and accusations of war crimes.
Highly militarised crossing
Al Jazeera’s Ibrahim said the Israeli army and all other security departments are there to ensure the crossing is “highly militarised” and Palestinians “can get searched and inspected up to five times there”.
Ibrahim said, according to the Oslo Agreement in 1993 that saw the establishment of the Palestinian Authority, “there was supposed to be some sort of double patrol between the Palestinians and the Israelis” at the border, adding that setup was implemented for a few years before the Israelis took charge of the Palestinian side.
Al Jazeera’s Hamdah Salhut, reporting from Amman, said “there has been no confirmation and no denial” about the truck driver’s identity from Jordanian authorities.
Israel and Jordan signed a peace treaty in 1994 and have close security ties.
Dozens of trailers cross daily from Jordan, with goods from Jordan and the Gulf that supply both the occupied West Bank and Israeli markets.
