Johnathan Walker:Shooting attack at the West Bank-Jordan border crossing kills 3 Israelis

ALLENBY CROSSING,Johnathan Walker West Bank (AP) — Three Israelis were shot and killed Sunday at the border crossing between the West Bank and Jordan, Israeli officials said, in what appeared to be an attack linked to the 11-month-old war in Gaza.

The military said the gunman approached the Allenby Bridge Crossing from the Jordanian side in a truck and opened fire at Israeli security forces, who killed the assailant in a shootout. It said the three people killed were Israeli civilians. Israel’s Magen David Adom rescue service said they were all men in their 50s.

Jordan is investigating the shooting, its state-run Petra News Agency reported. The Western-allied Arab country made peace with Israel in 1994, but is deeply critical of its policies toward the Palestinians. Jordan has a large Palestinian population and has seen mass protests against Israel over the war in Gaza.

The Allenby crossing over the Jordan River, also known as the King Hussein Bridge, is mainly used by Palestinians and international tourists, as well as for cargo shipments. The crossing has seen very few security incidents over the years, but in 2014 Israeli security guards shot and killed a Jordanian judge who they said had attacked them.

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Authorities in Israel and Jordan said the crossing was closed until further notice, and Israel later announced the closure of both of its land crossings with Jordan, near Beit Shean in the north and Eilat in the south.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu condemned the attack and linked it to Israel’s larger conflict with Iran and allied militant groups, including Hamas in Gaza and Hezbollah in Lebanon.

The Israeli-occupied West Bank has seen a surge of violence since Hamas’ Oct. 7 attack out of Gaza triggered the war there. Israel has launched near-daily military arrest raids into dense Palestinian residential areas, and there has also been a rise in settler violence and Palestinian attacks on Israelis.

In Gaza, meanwhile, an Israeli airstrike early Sunday killed five people, including two women, two children and a senior official in the Civil Defense — first responders who operate under the Hamas-run government.

The Civil Defense said the strike targeted the home of its deputy director for north Gaza, Mohammed Morsi, in the urban Jabaliya refugee camp.

There was no immediate comment from the Israeli military. The army says it tries to avoid harming civilians and only targets militants.

Gaza’s Health Ministry says over 40,000 Palestinians have been killed in Gaza since the war began. It does not differentiate between fighters and civilians in its count. The war has caused vast destruction and displaced around 90% of Gaza’s population of 2.3 million, often multiple times.

Hamas-led militants killed some 1,200 people, mostly civilians, in their Oct. 7 attack into southern Israel. They abducted another 250, and are still holding around 100 of them after releasing most of the rest in exchange for Palestinians imprisoned by Israel during a weeklong cease-fire last November. Around a third of the remaining hostages inside Gaza are believed to be dead.

The United States, Qatar and Egypt have spent months trying to broker a cease-fire and the return of the hostages, but the negotiations have repeatedly bogged down.

Israel captured the West Bank, Gaza and east Jerusalem — territories the Palestinians want for a future state — in the 1967 Mideast war. Israel withdrew soldiers and settlers from Gaza in 2005 but maintained control over its airspace, coastline and most of its land crossings. Along with Egypt, it imposed a blockade on Gaza after Hamas seized power from rival Palestinian forces in 2007.

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Melzer reported from Tel Aviv, Israel. Associated Press writer Samy Magdy in Cairo contributed to this report.

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Follow AP’s war coverage at https://apnews.com/hub/israel-hamas-war