The Allenby Bridge, where Sunday’s deadly shooting took place, is the only crossing connecting the West Bank with Jordan.
In a rare attack at an Israeli-controlled crossing between the West Bank and Jordan, a gunman killed three Israeli workers Sunday before being shot dead, the Israeli military said.
The Allenby Bridge crossing point, also known as the King Hussein crossing, is the only one with Jordan that leads into the Israeli-occupied West Bank, near the desert city of Jericho. Other crossings to the north and south connect with Israel proper; all three land crossings were temporarily closed after the attack.
Jordan is at peace with Israel, but relations have been tense since the outbreak of the 11-month-old war between Israel and the Palestinian militant group Hamas in the Gaza Strip. Jordan, whose population is largely Palestinian, has heatedly denounced Israel’s conduct of the war, in which some 41,000 Palestinians in Gaza have been killed, according to Palestinian health officials.
Much of the enclave lies in ruins, and most of its 2.3 million people have been displaced, many repeatedly.
Israel is also engaged in a lower-intensity conflict on its northern border with the Lebanese group Hezbollah. The two sides engage in near-daily exchanges of fire, and thousands of people have been driven from their homes on both sides of the frontier. Sirens sounded in northern Israel again on Sunday, and the military said dozens of rockets fired from Lebanon were intercepted.
