Israeli security forces gather at the site of a reported attack near the Allenby crossing between the occupied West Bank and Jordan on September 8, 2024, where the Israeli military said a truck driver opened fire, killing three Israelis. The (Photo by Ahmad GHARABLI / AFP) (Photo by AHMAD GHARABLI/AFP via Getty Images)
Ahmad Gharabli | Afp | Getty Images
Three people were shot and killed Sunday at the border crossing between the West Bank and Jordan, Israeli officials said, in an attack that appeared to be linked to the 11-month war in Gaza.
The army said the gunman approached the Allenby Bridge crossing from the Jordanian side in a truck and opened fire on Israeli security forces, who killed the gunman in a shootout. It said the three people killed were Israeli civilians. Israel’s Magen David Adom rescue agency said they were all men in their 50s.
Jordan is investigating the shooting, the state-run Petra news agency reported. The Western-allied Arab country made peace with Israel in 1994, but is deeply critical of its policies toward the Palestinians. Jordan has a large Palestinian population and has seen mass demonstrations against Israel about the war in Gaza.
The Allenby Pass over the Jordan River is mainly used by Israelis, Palestinians and international tourists.
The Israeli-occupied West Bank has seen a wave of violence after Hamas’ October 7 attack from Gaza sparked the war there. Israel has launched almost daily military arrest raids in densely populated Palestinian areas, and increase in settler violence and Palestinian attacks on Israelis.
In Gaza, meanwhile, an Israeli airstrike early Sunday killed five people, including two women, two children and a senior Civil Defense official – first responders operating under the Hamas government.
Civil Defense said the attack targeted the home of its deputy director for northern Gaza, Mohamed Morsi, in the urban Jabaliya refugee camp.
There was no immediate comment from the Israeli military. The military says it tries to avoid harming civilians and only targets militants.
The Gaza Ministry of Health reports Over 40,000 Palestinians have been killed in Gaza since the war began. It does not distinguish between combatants and civilians in terms of its numbers. The war has caused massive destruction and displaced around 90% of Gaza’s population of 2.3 million, often multiple times.
Hamas-led militants killed around 1,200 people, mostly civilians, in their October 7 attack on southern Israel. They kidnapped another 250 and are still holding about 100 of them after releasing most of the rest in exchange for Palestinians jailed by Israel during a week-long truce last November. About a third of the remaining hostages in Gaza are believed to be dead.
The United States, Qatar and Egypt have spent months trying to broker a ceasefire and the return of hostages, but negotiations they have repeatedly bogged down.
Israel captured the West Bank, Gaza and east Jerusalem – territory the Palestinians want for a future state – in the 1967 Middle East war. Israel withdrew troops and settlers from Gaza in 2005, but retained control of the airspace space, the coastline and most land crossings. Along with Egypt, it imposed a blockade on Gaza after Hamas seized power from rival Palestinian forces in 2007.
