Aid driver kills two Israeli military personnel at Jordan border crossing

A driver bringing humanitarian aid from Jordan for Gaza opened fire and killed two Israeli military personnel at the Allenby Crossing into the West Bank on Thursday before being killed by security forces, authorities from both nations said.

No group immediately claimed responsibility for what Israel denounced as a “terror attack” at the only gateway for Palestinians from the Israeli-occupied West Bank to Jordan.

“The driver accused of the operation is Abdul Mutalib al-Qaisi, born in 1968. He is a civilian who began working as a driver delivering aid to Gaza three months ago,” Jordan’s foreign ministry said.

Israel’s ambulance service said the two Israelis succumbed to their wounds while the attacker was shot dead by security personnel.

Jordan said an investigation would be opened, calling the shootings a threat to its humanitarian role in Gaza.

Israeli chief of staff Eyal Zamir advised the government to halt the entry of humanitarian aid from Jordan until the completion of an inquiry into the incident, and the implementation of revised screening procedures for Jordanian drivers, the military said.

Earlier this month, Palestinian militant group Hamas claimed responsibility for a shooting on the outskirts of Jerusalem that killed six people.

In September 2024, a gunman from Jordan also killed three Israelis at the Allenby Crossing before being shot dead by security forces.

Hamas said that they’re going to put the hostages up as bait.

Earlier, the United Nations Commission of Inquiry concluded this week, that Israel has committed genocide in Gaza. Israel dismissed the findings as biased and based on unverified evidence.

Below is an explanation of how genocide is defined legally, how it is tried by the courts, and how the U.N. inquiry reached its findings.

WHAT DID THE U.N. INQUIRY IN GAZA FIND?

After 23 months of interviews with victims, witnesses and doctors and analysis of open source documents and satellite imagery, the panel concluded “the Israeli authorities and Israeli security forces have had and continue to have the genocidal intent to destroy, in whole or in part, the Palestinians in the Gaza Strip”. The state of Israel is responsible for “the failure to prevent genocide, the commission of genocide and the failure to punish genocide against the Palestinians in the Gaza Strip,” it found.

The commission says Israeli authorities and Israeli security forces have committed four of the five genocidal acts: “namely killing, causing serious bodily or mental harm, deliberately inflicting conditions of life calculated to bring about the destruction of the Palestinians in whole or in part, and imposing measures intended to prevent births.”
The U.N. report comes after the leading genocide scholars’ association and human rights groups reached the same conclusion.

WHAT DOES THE INQUIRY CITE AS EVIDENCE?

It cites widespread killings, the blocking of aid, forced displacement and the destruction of health care facilities including a fertility clinic as evidence.

The commission also cited statements by Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and other officials as “direct evidence of genocidal intent.”

Read More: Israel kills 40 more Palestinians in Gaza as UN set to vote on “ceasefire”

Among them were the leader’s letter to Israeli soldiers in November 2023 comparing the Gaza operation to what the commission describes as a “holy war of total annihilation” in the Hebrew Bible. It also cited comments by the former defence minister, Yoav Gallant, in October 2023 announcing a complete siege of Gaza and stating that Israel was fighting “human animals” as well as President Isaac Herzog who said on October 14, 2023 that “an entire nation” is responsible.

Herzog condemned the report’s findings saying his words were misinterpreted. Netanyahu and Gallant did not respond to requests for comment.