West Bank: Three Israeli security guards killed in attack at crossing with Jordan

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 army said, as it continues its relentless offensive against the Palestinian Hamas in the Gaza Strip.

The attack took place at the Allenby crossing, the only access to the outside world for Palestinians in the West Bank, a Palestinian territory occupied by Israel since 1967.

The perpetrator was “a Jordanian citizen” identified as Maher Diab Hussein Al-Jazi, the Jordanian Interior Ministry said. He was transporting goods from Jordan to the West Bank, the same source said.

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.”

The Magen David Adom, Israel's equivalent of the Red Cross, confirmed the deaths of three men aged around 50 in the attack.

They were three Israeli security guards, the army said.

Israeli security forces at the scene of a shooting attack at one of the crossings between the Jordan Valley in the occupied West Bank and Jordan © AFP – Ahmad GHARABLI

The assailant was killed, the army and police said, without specifying his identity.

“This is a difficult day. A despicable terrorist murdered three of our citizens in cold blood on the Allenby Bridge,” Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said.

– Israeli operations –

Hamas, which is at war with Israel in the Gaza Strip, welcomed the attack but did not claim responsibility. The Palestinian group said in a statement that the shooting illustrated “the Arab peoples' rejection of the (Israeli) occupation, its crimes and its ambitions in Palestine and Jordan.”

An ambulance arrives at the scene of a gun attack at one of the crossings between the Jordan Valley in the occupied West Bank and Jordan on September 8, 2024 © AFP – AHMAD GHARABLI

Thousands of people pass through this crossing point located in Palestinian territory but controlled by Israel every day. It has been “closed until further notice,” according to a Jordanian security source.

This terminal had already been targeted, in January 1998, by a suicide attack that resulted in the deaths of several people.

Sunday's attack comes as Israel has stepped up large-scale military operations in the West Bank in recent weeks, where violence has flared since the start of the war in the Gaza Strip, triggered by the attack by the Palestinian Islamist movement Hamas in Israel on October 7.

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According to the Palestinian Ministry of Health, at least 662 Palestinians have been killed there since that date, while at least 23 Israelis, including soldiers and police officers, have died in Palestinian attacks or during military operations, according to official Israeli data.

In the Gaza Strip, where the war entered its 12th month on Saturday, the civil defense announced the death on Sunday of a dozen people in Israeli air strikes.

A column of smoke rises in Khan Younis, in the southern Gaza Strip, after an Israeli strike on September 8, 2024 © AFP – Bashar TALEB

The Israeli army said it had struck about “25 Hamas targets” in the past 24 hours.

– “Tired” –

On October 7, Hamas commandos infiltrated from Gaza carried out an unprecedented attack in southern border Israel, which resulted in the death of 1,205 people, mostly civilians, according to an AFP count based on official Israeli data. Of the 251 people abducted that day, 97 are still being held in Gaza, 33 of whom have been declared dead by the army.

Israel has vowed to destroy the Palestinian movement that seized power in Gaza in 2007 and is considered a terrorist movement by the United States and the European Union.

Israeli reprisals have left 40,972 dead in the Gaza Strip, according to the Hamas government's health ministry. The majority of the dead are women and children, according to the UN.

And the war has plunged the besieged Palestinian territory into a humanitarian disaster, with the vast majority of Gaza's 2.4 million people displaced.

A column of smoke rises in Khan Younis, in the southern Gaza Strip, after an Israeli strike on September 8, 2024 © AFP – Bashar TALEB

“Moving from one area to another is difficult and there is no safe place in Gaza,” said Raeed Hamad, 51, a cancer patient from the southern Gaza Strip city of Khan Younis.

In Deir al-Balah (center), Omm Mohammed Wadi wants “serious negotiations.”

“We want them to stop the war. Enough! We are tired. Our clothes are worn out, our children are sick and they all suffer from scabies,” she says.

Despite multiple attempts by international mediators — the United States, Qatar and Egypt — and pressure to obtain a ceasefire and the release of Israeli hostages, the belligerents remain inflexible and accuse each other of blocking any agreement.

Israeli Defense Minister Yoav Gallant met his troops on Sunday in the center of the Gaza Strip where he has recommitted to eliminating Hamas, according to a statement from his office.

He added that the army was also preparing in northern Israel, where there are almost daily exchanges of fire with Lebanese Hezbollah, a Hamas ally.

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