According to Israeli military officials, on Sept 8, 2024, A Jordanian gunman shot three Israeli civilians at the Allenby crossing over the Jordan River. The Wall Street Journal wrote that Jordan’s Ministry of Interior identified the attacker as Jordanian citizen, Maher Thiab Hussein Al-Jazi, who had entered the West Bank as a commercial goods truck driver. The ministry said that the Allenby crossing has remained closed since the incident and an investigation is underway.
“A terrorist approached the area of the Allenby Bridge from Jordan in a truck, exited the truck, and opened fire at the Israeli security forces operating at the bridge,” the Israeli military told Reuters. “The terrorist was eliminated by the security forces, three Israeli civilians were pronounced dead as a result of the attack.”
PBS News reported that the border checkpoint – officially titled The King Hussein Bridge – has historically been a point for international trade and a popular crossing for 3 million Palestinians living in the West Bank, cargo shipments and international tourists. There have been other confrontations at the checkpoint including a 2014 security incident where Israeli guards shot and killed a Jordanian judge who allegedly attacked them.
Anti-Israel tensions have been rising in Jordan where Reuters reported “hundreds of people took to the streets” in the country’s capital, Amman, rallying that the 2024 shooting was to avenge thousands killed in Palestine by the Israel Defense Forces since Oct. 7, 2023, when Hamas attacked Israel.
One Brookings Institute report provides some historical context on Jordan-Israel relations: In September 1993, talks between Israel and the Palestine Liberation Organization were revealed and then Jordan King Hussein bin Talal, “felt betrayed” because of his long-held, secret, meetings of brokering peace for Palestine and Israel; however, the diplomatic opportunity for Jordan and its role in the Oslo Accords peace process, became clear. The Report says on Oct. 26, 1994, in the Wadi Arava, former U.S. President Bill Clinton witnessed the signing of a peace treaty by then-Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin and Jordan Prime Minister Abdel Salam al-Majali. The long-negotiated treaty was a part of the larger Oslo process, and did face some criticism from Jordanians, some of whom thought the signing was “dishonorable” and “legitimized Israeli occupation.”
Over the 30 years since the signing of the peace agreement, Reuters reported that multiple trucks with goods have crossed frequently between the Jordan and Israeli border and the mutually beneficial trade has supplied the West Bank and Israeli market with needed supplies.
However, one Al Jazeera article reported that since Israel’s ongoing retaliation to the October 7 attacks, the symbolic strength of the treaty has begun to fray. On Nov. 16, 2023, Jordanian Foreign Minister Ayman Safadi announced that Jordan would refuse to sign a treaty with Israel that would exchange energy for water. The minister told Al Jazeera that one major aspect was the hypocrisy of Jordan “sitting next to an Israeli minister to sign a water and electricity agreement, all while Israel continues to kill children.”
“We [Jordan] signed the peace agreement in 1994 as part of a wider Arab effort to establish a two-state solution. That has not been achieved,” Safadi said. “So the peace deal will have to remain on the back burner gathering dust for now.”
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