Prime Minister of Israel benjamin netanyahu He strongly criticized Iran’s “axis of evil” after a terrorist attack on the West Bank-Jordan border on Sunday killed three Israeli civilians.
“This is a difficult day. A hateful terrorist brutally murdered three of our citizens on the Allenby Bridge. On behalf of the government, I offer my condolences to the families of the victims,” Netanyahu said at the start of his cabinet meeting on Sunday. “We are surrounded by a murderous ideology led by Iran’s axis of evil. In recent days, hateful terrorists have brutally murdered six of our hostages and three Israeli police officers. The murderers make no distinction between us, they want to kill us all, down to the last person; right and left, secular and religious, Jew and non-Jew.”
The Israeli military said a gunman drove a truck from the Jordanian side to the Allenby Bridge crossing and opened fire on Israeli security forces, killing the attacker in a gunfight. It said three of those killed were Israeli civilians. The Israeli Magen David Adom rescue service said they were all men in their 50s.
Jordan, a Western-allied Arab country with a large Palestinian population, is investigating the shooting, its state-run Petra news agency reported.
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Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu addresses a press conference in Jerusalem on September 2, 2024. (Ohad Zweigenberg/Pool/AFP via Getty Images)
Hamas official Sami Abu Zuhri celebrated the attack and linked the shooting to Israeli attacks on Gaza.
“We expect many more such actions,” he said, according to Reuters.
It was the first attack of its kind on the West Bank-Jordan border since Hamas militants killed nearly 1,200 people, most of them civilians, in their attack in southern Israel on October 7. Another 250 people were taken hostage in Gaza, and Hamas still holds about 100 of them. About a third of the remaining hostages inside Gaza are believed to be dead.
“The thing that prevents our people from perishing like in the past is the strength of the State of Israel and the Israel Defense Forces,” Netanyahu said on Sunday. “The heroic spirit of the soldiers, policemen, men and women of our security forces, the supreme sacrifice of our fallen heroes and the resilience of our people – that’s what makes the difference. When we stand together – we cannot have enemies, so their main goal is to divide us, to sow divisions within us.”
Netanyahu said that over the weekend, “the German newspaper Bild published an official Hamas document revealing its plan of action: create divisions within us, wage psychological warfare on the families of hostages, exert internal and external political pressure on the Israeli government, break us from within, and continue the war until Israel’s defeat.”
Israeli police stand guard near the site of a deadly shooting attack, where Israeli officials say three people were shot dead at the Allenby Bridge crossing between the West Bank and Jordan, Sunday, Sept. 8, 2024. (AP Photo/Mahmoud Ilian)
“The vast majority of Israeli citizens do not fall into this trap of Hamas,” the prime minister said. “They know that we are committed to doing everything in our power to achieve the goals of the war – to destroy Hamas, return all our hostages, ensure that Gaza will no longer pose a threat to Israel and return our residents safely to their homes in the north and south.”
“We will stand together, we will hold the chain of David together, and with God’s help, we will prevail,” Netanyahu said. “And finally, some people ask – ‘Will you hold the sword forever?’ In the Middle East, there is no eternity without the sword.”
The Allenbys Crossing the Jordan RiverAlso known as the King Hussein Bridge, the bridge is used mainly by Palestinians and international tourists, as well as cargo shipments. There have been few security incidents at the crossing in past years, but in 2014 Israeli security guards shot and killed a Jordanian judge who attacked them, the Associated Press reported.
Israeli soldiers stand guard near the site of a deadly shooting attack, where Israeli officials say three people were shot dead at the Allenby Bridge crossing between the West Bank and Jordan, Sunday, Sept. 8, 2024. (AP Photo/Mahmoud Ilian)
Israel and Jordan signed a peace treaty in 1994.
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Israeli and Jordanian authorities said the crossing was closed until further notice, and Israel later announced the closure of both of its land crossings with Jordan, near Beit She’an in the north and Eilat in the south.
Fox News’ Yael Rotem-Curiel and the Associated Press contributed to this report.
