Two killed in Amman attack

Shooting breaks out amid rising Israel-Jordan tensions

AMMAN: Two Jordanians were killed and an Israeli seriously wounded in a shooting at the Jewish state’s embassy in Amman, a security source said.

“The first Jordanian, 17-year-old Mohammed Jawawdeh, succumbed to his injuries at the scene. The second, Bashar Hamarneh, a doctor who was in the residential quarter of the embassy at the time of the incident ... died of his injuries after midnight in hospital,” the security source said on Sunday.

The injured Israeli is “deputy director of security at the Israeli embassy and is still receiving treat- ment in hospital”, the source added.

Police said earlier that one person had died and two were injured in the incident in the residential Rabiyeh neighbourhood of Amman.

In a statement, they said they were “informed late in the evening (on Sunday) of a shooting at a residential building inside the compound of the Israeli embassy”.

Police deployed to the scene and surrounded the area, the statement said, adding that the two Jordanians had gone into the building to carry out “carpentry work”.

An investigation into the shooting was still under way.

The security source said the casualties were the result of an unspecified “incident”.

Jordanian security forces were deployed in the streets around the embassy, an AFP correspondent said.

Israel and Jordan are bound by a 1994 peace treaty, but tensions have been high in recent days after Israel put in place security measures at a highly sensitive holy site in annexed east Jerusalem.

On Friday, thousands of Jordanians took to the streets of Amman after the weekly prayer to denounce the Israeli measures at the Haram al- Sharif mosque compound, known to Jews as Temple Mount.

Jordan is the official custodian of Muslim holy sites in Jerusalem.

A crowd estimated at more than 8,000 turned out for a demonstration.

Israel shut off the mosque compound on July 14 after Arab Israelis attacked and killed two police officers nearby.

Violence flared between Israeli security forces and Palestinians, who are demanding that Israel remove metal detectors installed outside the site after the attack.