Three Israeli security guards were killed Sunday when a truck driver opened fire at the Israeli-controlled crossing between the occupied West Bank and Jordan, the Israeli military said.
A Jordanian security source said following the attack that the crossing, the only access to the outside world for Palestinians in the West Bank, had been “closed until further notice.”
The attack took place at the Allenby crossing, used for both passengers and goods between the West Bank, a Palestinian territory occupied by Israel since 1967, and Jordan.
According to the Israeli army, “the terrorist approached the Allenby Bridge area from Jordan in a truck, got out and opened fire on Israeli security forces operating on the bridge.”
“After resuscitation efforts, paramedics and ambulance workers from MDA (Magen David Adom, the Israeli equivalent of the Red Cross, editor’s note) confirmed the deaths of three men, aged around 50, who had been shot,” the emergency services said in a statement.
The three were Israeli security guards, the army said.
The alleged attacker was killed, the army and police said, without specifying his identity.
The Jordanian Interior Ministry announced “the opening of an investigation into the shooting that took place on the other side of the King Hussein Bridge” (Allenby Crossing, editor’s note), also called Karami by the Palestinians.
– Israeli operations –
“This is a difficult day. A despicable terrorist murdered in cold blood three of our citizens on the Allenby Bridge,” Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said ahead of the government meeting.
Thousands of people pass through this crossing point every day, which is in Palestinian territory but is controlled by Israel.
This important terminal has already been targeted, notably at the end of the 1990s. In January 1998, a suicide attack there resulted in the deaths of several people.
Sunday’s attack comes as Israel has stepped up large-scale military operations in the occupied West Bank in recent weeks.
Israeli incursions there are daily, even though, under the (moribund) Israeli-Palestinian Oslo accords, the Israeli army is not supposed to enter the autonomous zones placed under the exclusive control of the Palestinian Authority security forces.
Since the start of the war between Israel and the Gaza Strip, triggered by the Hamas attack on Israel on October 7, violence in the West Bank has flared up.
According to the Palestinian Health Ministry, at least 662 Palestinians have been killed there since that date, while at least 23 Israelis, including soldiers and police officers, have died there in Palestinian attacks or during military operations, according to official Israeli data.
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