Three Israelis Are Shot Deadly While Crossing the West Bank-Jordan Border.
Reported to the Israeli military, a gunman shot and killed three Israelis on Sunday at a busy border crossing connecting Jordan and the Israeli-occupied West Bank.
The attack occurs at a sensitive time for the relationship between Israel and its neighbor, Jordan, and coincides with an upsurge in aggression in the occupied region since the Hamas-led assault on Israel on October 7th sparked the Gaza War.
According to a statement from the military, the gunman drove from Jordan to the Israeli-controlled portion of the Allenby Bridge crossing on Sunday and started shooting at Israeli security personnel. The gunman was shot and killed at the site; the military did not identify him. The Israel Airports Authority stated that the three deaths were forklift workers who were employed at the crossing.
The bridge is the primary route for the majority of Palestinians living in the occupied territory to travel abroad. It is also close to the West Bank city of Jericho. Some aid has been transported to the Gaza Strip, which has been devastated by conflict, through this crossing. Israel's Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu expressed his sympathies to the families of the dead and called the gunman "an abhorrent terrorist."
How the gunman was able to bring a firearm into the area of the crossing under Israeli supervision was not immediately apparent. The Allenby Bridge and two land borders between Israel and Jordan were blocked, according to a statement from the Israel Airports Authority. The shooting was under investigation, according to a statement from Jordan's Interior Ministry. A request for comment was not immediately answered by the nation's foreign minister.
The attacker's name and motivation were first unclear. Although it did not claim credit for the incident, Hamas, which has encouraged Jordanians to intensify their demonstrations and acts of violence against Israel, commended it. Since the combat in Gaza started in October, there have been numerous rallies against the conflict in Gaza in Jordan, a country where a significant portion of the population is of Palestinian descent. However, the nation is a close friend of the United States and has a peace treaty with Israel, which puts it in a difficult situation as it deals with the aftermath of the conflict.
In November, Jordan withdrew its ambassador from Israel, and it has consistently denounced Israeli airstrikes in Gaza. Jordan's King Abdullah II is one of the main advocates of an enclave cease-fire. Simultaneously, the desert kingdom has upheld its fragile peace agreement with Israel and has persisted in collaborating with Israeli authorities on issues pertaining to safety and the economy. During tit-for-tat strikes between Iran and Israel in April, Jordan assisted in thwarting Iranian missiles and drones, a move that was applauded by Israeli officials but condemned by several Palestinians.
There have previously been violent incidents at the Allenby Bridge crossing. Tensions between the two countries increased in 2014 after a judge of Palestinian descent from Jordan was shot and killed by Israeli forces at the crossing. According to The Associated Press, a Jordanian member of parliament was accused of attempting to sneak weapons into the West Bank through the traverse last year in a Jordanian court. During the 1967 Arab-Israeli War, Israel captured the West Bank from Jordan and went on to occupy it.
Since the war in Gaza began in October of last year due to an attack by Hamas on Israel, there has been a substantial increase in violence. Over 600 people have been slain in the West Bank by Israeli forces and settlers since then, according to the UN. While armed organizations in the captured zone claimed some of the dead as members, it looks like the majority were civilians. Following a 10-day raid, Israel appeared to be pulling out of the West Bank city of Jenin, only days before the shooting at the border on Sunday. There was devastation left in the wake of the operation, which the Israeli military claimed was an attempt to confront increasing attacks on Israelis and crack down on Palestinian armed groups.
Israeli military officials reported that they had killed 14 militants during the operation; however, the Palestinian Authority's health ministry, which does not distinguish between combatants and civilians, reported that 21 people had died.
In a related incident, American-Turkish woman Aysenur Eygi lost her life on Friday at a demonstration in the West Bank's Nablus area. On Saturday, her family said that an Israeli investigation was insufficient and requested that President Biden and other senior U.S. officials commission an independent investigation to "ensure full accountability for the guilty parties." According to the Israeli military, after a main instigator of violent action threw rocks at Israeli forces, soldiers "reacted with fire toward him." While some demonstrators had thrown rocks at Israeli troops, witnesses stated that at the time Ms. Eygi was shot, the fighting had already ended.
Palestinian authorities have expressed their hope that Ms. Eygi's passing may prompt the US government to give the Palestinian people more consideration. "It's possible that Biden and the US will observe this situation and conclude that there is a marginalized population," stated Ghassan Daghlas, the Palestinian Authority's governor of Nablus, in a late-night interview on Saturday.
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