Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu blasted what he called Iran’s “axis of evil” in remarks Sunday after a terrorist attack at the West Bank-Jordan border crossing killed three Israelis.
“It’s a hard day. A despicable terrorist murdered three of our citizens in cold blood at the Allenby Bridge. On behalf of the government, I send my condolences to the families of the victims,” Netanyahu said at the beginning of his cabinet meeting Sunday. “We are surrounded by a murderous ideology led by Iran’s axis of evil. In recent days, despicable terrorists have murdered six of our hostages in cold blood and three Israeli police officers. The killers do not distinguish between us, they want to murder us all, until the last one; right and left, secular and religious, Jews and non-Jews.”
The Israeli military said a 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, a Western-allied Arab country with a large Palestinian population, is investigating the shooting, its state-run Petra News Agency reported.
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Hamas official Sami Abu Zuhri celebrated the attack, connecting the shooting to Israel’s offensive in Gaza.
“We expect many more similar actions,” he said, according to Reuters.
It marked the first attack of its kind along the West Bank-Jordan border crossing since Hamas terrorists killed approximately 1,200 people, mostly civilians, in their Oct. 7 attack into southern Israel. Another 250 were taken as hostages into Gaza, and Hamas are still holding approximately 100 of them. Around a third of the remaining hostages inside Gaza are believed to be dead.
“What prevents the elimination of our people as in the past is the strength of the State of Israel and the strength of the Israel Defense Forces,” Netanyahu continued Sunday. “The heroic spirit of the soldiers, the policemen, the men and women of our security forces, the supreme sacrifice of our fallen heroes and the resilience of our people – that’s all the difference. When we stand together – our enemies cannot, so their main goal is to divide us, to sow division within us.”
Over the weekend, Netanyahu noted, “the German newspaper Bild published an official Hamas document that reveals its plan of action: to sow division within us, to wage psychological warfare on the families of the hostages, to exert internal and external political pressure on the Israeli government, to tear us apart from the inside, and to continue the war until further notice, until the defeat of Israel.”
“The vast majority of Israeli citizens do not fall into this trap of Hamas,” the prime minister said. “They know that we are committed with all our might to achieve the goals of the war – to eliminate Hamas, to return all our hostages, to ensure that Gaza will no longer pose a threat to Israel and to safely return our residents in the north and south to their homes.”
“We will stand together, we will hold on to David’s link together, and with God’s help we will win,” Netanyahu said. “And lastly, some ask – ‘Will you forever hold a sword?’ In the Middle East, without a sword there is no eternity.”
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, the Associated Press reported.
Israel and Jordan signed a peace treaty in 1994.
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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.
Fox News’ Yael Rotem-Kuriel and the Associated Press contributed to this report.