3 Israelis killed in shooting at border crossing between West Bank and Jordan
The United States, Qatar and Egypt have tried for months to broker a ceasefire and return the hostages, but negotiations have repeatedly stalled. Representative image (Photo courtesy of: Twitter/@palinfoen)
Three people were shot dead at the border crossing between the West Bank and Jordan on Sunday, Israeli officials said.
The military 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 attacker in a gun battle. It said the three people killed were Israeli civilians.
According to the Israeli rescue service Magen David Adom, the three men who died were in their 50s.
There was no immediate reaction from Jordan, which made peace with Israel in 1994 but has been fiercely critical of its policies toward the Palestinians. The Allenby crossing is used mainly by Israelis, Palestinians and international tourists.
The Israeli-occupied West Bank has seen a surge in violence since Hamas launched a war from Gaza on October 7. Israel has carried out almost daily military arrests in densely populated Palestinian neighborhoods, and there has also been an increase in settler violence and Palestinian attacks on Israelis.
Meanwhile, an Israeli airstrike in Gaza on Sunday morning killed five people, including two women, two children and a senior civil defense official operating under the Hamas-led government.
According to the Civil Protection, the attack targeted the home of the deputy director for northern Gaza, Mohammed Morsi, in the urban Jabaliya refugee camp.
There was no immediate comment from the Israeli military, which says it does not want to harm civilians and only targets militants.
Gaza’s Health Ministry says more than 40,000 Palestinians have been killed in Gaza since the war broke out 11 months ago. It makes no distinction between fighters and civilians in its count. The war has caused enormous destruction and displaced about 90% of Gaza’s population of 2.3 million, often multiple times.
Hamas-led militants killed about 1,200 people, mostly civilians, during the October 7 attack on Israel. They kidnapped another 250 and still hold about 100, after releasing most of the rest in exchange for Palestinians held by Israel during a week-long ceasefire last November. About a third of the remaining hostages in Gaza are estimated to be dead.
The United States, Qatar and Egypt have been trying for months to broker a ceasefire and get the hostages back, but negotiations keep stalling.
The Palestinian Health Ministry in the West Bank says at least 691 Palestinians have been killed since the war began. Most appear to be militants killed during Israeli military operations, but the toll also includes civilian bystanders and protesters who threw stones.
Israel captured the West Bank, Gaza and East Jerusalem, the territories the Palestinians want for a future state, in the 1967 Mideast War. Israel withdrew soldiers and settlers from Gaza in 2005 but retained control of its airspace, coastline and most land crossings. It and Egypt imposed a blockade on Gaza after Hamas seized power from rival Palestinian forces in 2007.
(Only the headline and image of this report may have been edited by Business Standard staff; the rest of the content is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
First publication: 08 Sep 2024 | 14:20 IST