A terror attack killed three people at the Allenby Crossing in the Jordan Valley on Sunday, Magen David Adom (MDA) said.
Yohanan Shehori, 61, a resident of Ma’aleh Efraim, and Yuri Birnbaum, 65, a resident of Naama, were later named as two of the victims in the Hebrew media. Earlier, MDA stated that its paramedics and members of an IDF medical team performed resuscitation efforts on the three wounded men which failed, and responders subsequently pronounced them dead.
Soldiers killed the terrorist who had approached the area in a truck from the Jordanian side of the border, got out and opened fire at the security forces. the IDF affirmed.
The IDF added that troops at the bridge scene were checking the truck for explosive devices.
The Jordanian Interior Ministry said the country had begun its own investigation of the shooting, Reuters reported.
A Jordanian official told Reuters that the Allenby Bridge, known as the King Hussein Bridge in Jordan, had been closed.
The attack occurred in a commercial cargo area under Israeli control where Jordanian trucks unload cargo entering the West Bank from the Hashemite kingdom.
Maher Al Jazi, a 39-year-old Jordanian citizen who worked as a truck driver, was later identified as the terrorist who carried out the terror attack, according to Israeli media reports.
Paramedics at the scene
MDA paramedic Yotam Tzur recounted seeing “three men lying unconscious, with no pulse, not breathing, with gunshot wounds. Together with the IDF medical team, we performed resuscitation efforts, but unfortunately, we had to declare their deaths.”
United Hatzalah paramedic Avi Yudkovsky added, “It was a very difficult scene at the Allenby Crossing. Three men in their fifties sustained severe gunshot wounds. Despite efforts to resuscitate them, they were pronounced dead at the scene due to the severity of their injuries.”
Netanyahu, Ben-Gvir respond to attack
“We are surrounded by a murderous ideology led by the Iranian axis of evil,” Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said following the attack. “In recent days, abhorrent terrorists murdered six of our hostages and three Israel Police officers in cold blood,” he stated, adding, “The murderers do not differentiate between us. They want to murder us all, right and left, secular and religious, Jews and non-Jews, until the last one.”
“What prevents the destruction of our people, as in previous times, is the strength of the State of Israel and the power of the IDF,” Netanyahu asserted.
National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir stated, “The war we are in is not only against Gaza and Hezbollah but also in Judea and Samaria.” He also noted that he had asked the prime minister to include “victory” “in Judea and Samaria” as part of the “war goals.”
Reuters contributed to this report.
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