A gunman killed three Israeli civilians in an attack near the Allenby Bridge border crossing with Jordan before security forces shot him dead on Sunday, Israeli authorities said.
“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 said.
“The terrorist was eliminated by the security forces, three Israeli civilians were pronounced dead as a result of the attack,” it said.
The border crossing is also known as the King Hussein Bridge. It lies about midway between Amman and Jerusalem, north of the Dead Sea.
Gunman kills three Israeli civilians near Jordan border crossing
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Israeli strikes in Gaza kill 61 in 48 hours as UN pursues vaccinations
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Elsewhere, an Israeli air strike on a house in Jabalia on Sunday killed Mohammad Morsi, deputy director of the Gaza Civil Emergency Service in the northern areas of the Gaza Strip, and four of his family, health officials said.
The Civil Emergency Service said in a statement that Mr Morsi’s death raised to 83 the number of its members killed by Israeli fire since October 7th.
Residents said Israeli forces had also blown up several houses in the Zeitoun suburb of Gaza City 5km from Jabalia. Medical teams said they were unable to answer desperate calls by some of the residents who had reported being trapped inside their houses, some wounded.
Israeli military strikes across the Palestinian Gaza Strip killed at least 61 people in the space of 48 hours, medics said on Saturday, as Israeli forces battled Hamas-led militants in the territory.
Eleven months into the war, numerous rounds of diplomacy have so far failed to clinch a ceasefire deal to end the conflict and bring the release of Israeli and foreign hostages held in Gaza.
Israel and Hamas continued to blame one another for the failure of mediators, including Qatar, Egypt and the United States, to broker a ceasefire. The United States is preparing to present a new proposal, but the prospects of a breakthrough appear dim as gaps between the sides’ positions remain large.
On Sunday the United Nations, in collaboration with local health authorities, extended by a day a campaign to vaccinate children in the southern Gaza Strip against polio before it moves on Monday to the north.
The campaign aims to vaccinate 640,000 children in Gaza after its first polio case in around 25 years. Limited pauses in the fighting have allowed the campaign to proceed.
UN officials said they were making progress, having reached more than half of the children needing the drops in the first two stages in the southern and central Gaza Strip. A second round of vaccination will be required four weeks after the first.
The latest violence in the decades-old Israeli-Palestinian conflict was triggered on October 7th when Hamas attacked Israel, killing 1,200 and taking about 250 hostages, according to Israeli tallies.
Israel’s subsequent assault on Gaza has killed more than 40,900 Palestinians, according to the Hamas-controlled health ministry, while also displacing nearly the entire population of 2.3 million, causing a hunger crisis and leading to genocide allegations at the World Court, which Israel denies.
Israel, which has lost 340 soldiers in Gaza, says at least a third of the Palestinian dead are fighters. – Reuters