Jordanian citizen is behind shooting at border crossing in West Bank

A Jordanian driver was responsible for a shooting on Sunday at the Allenby Bridge on the border between the West Bank and Jordan, in which three Israelis were killed along with the gunman, the Jordanian Interior Ministry said in a statement.

The statement said: “The shooter is a Jordanian national named Maher al-Jazi from Al-Huseiniyah district in Ma'an governorate, who was crossing the bridge in a truck carrying commercial goods from Jordan to the West Bank.”

“Preliminary investigation findings indicate that the incident was an isolated incident and investigations are ongoing to ascertain full details of the incident,” the ministry added.

It further stated that “coordination with the relevant authorities is underway to transfer the perpetrator’s body to Jordan for burial.”

According to the ministry, “all Jordanian drivers who were investigated (by Israel) following the incident were released, and more than 100 trucks returned to the kingdom during the day (Sunday).”

The ministry did not provide any information on whether the trucks delivered their cargo or not.

The Israeli rescue service Magen David Adom said that three Israeli men were seriously injured in the attack and later pronounced dead.

The attacker was shot dead, the newspaper Haaretz reported.

The Israeli army said the attacker came from Jordan, disembarked and opened fire on guards at the border crossing.

The Allenby Bridge border crossing is one of three border terminals between Jordan and Israel, along with the Sheikh Hussein Bridge and the Wadi Araba border crossing.

Sunday's attack came amid rising tensions in the occupied West Bank as Israel continues its brutal offensive on the Gaza Strip that has killed more than 40,900 Palestinians, mostly women and children, since October 7 last year.

According to the Health Ministry, at least 692 people have been killed and more than 5,700 injured by Israeli fire in the occupied West Bank since then.

The escalation follows a significant ruling by the International Court of Justice on July 19, which declared Israel's decades-long occupation of Palestinian territories illegal and called for the evacuation of all settlements in the West Bank and East Jerusalem.