Interior Ministry: Jordan Shooter is an ‘Individual Act’

Jordan’s Interior Ministry announced a Jordanian driver opened fire at the Allenby Crossing (King Hussein Bridge as it is called in Jordan and Al-Karamah Crossing as it is called on the Palestinian side), killing three Israelis and the perpetrator of the operation according to Al Jazeera.

The ministry said in a statement that “initial investigations into the shooting incident on the other side of King Hussein Bridge confirmed that the shooter is a Jordanian citizen named Maher Diab Hussein Al-Jazi, a resident of the Al-Hussainiya area in Ma’an Governorate” south of Amman.

Individual act

It stressed “the incident is an individual act and that investigations are ongoing to reach all the details of the incident,” noting that “coordination is underway between the relevant authorities to receive the body of the perpetrator of the operation so that it can be buried in Jordan.”

The statement explained that “all Jordanian drivers who were investigated (by the Israeli authorities) after the incident were released, and more than 100 trucks returned to Jordan in succession, Sunday.”

The statement concluded by saying that the relevant authorities are also following up on the issue of closing the bridge after the incident.

On Sunday morning, three Israelis were killed after being seriously wounded by gunfire at the Allenby Crossing linking the occupied West Bank and Jordan.

The Jordanian Interior Ministry did not address the motives behind the shooting, but it comes at a time when Israel – with broad American support – has been waging a war on the Gaza Strip since 7 October, leaving more than 135,000 Palestinians dead and wounded, most of them children and women.

In parallel with its war on Gaza, the Israeli army expanded its operations and settlers escalated their attacks in the West Bank, including East Jerusalem, which resulted in the martyrdom of 692 Palestinians, the injury of about 5,700, and the arrest of more than 10,000, according to official Palestinian institutions.

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Top Israeli Officers Say Cabinet Incites Escalation on West Bank

Senior Israeli military officers have accused the country’s political leadership of inciting escalation in the occupied West Bank.

The officers said far-right National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir and Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich are “directly responsible” for the rise in violence in the occupied territory, warning that the situation could spiral into a full-blown uprising, with many young Palestinians already facing unemployment and lack of opportunities.

“We are trying to prevent the population from fully joining the violence,” a military officer told Yedioth Ahronoth newspaper, adding that the ongoing Israeli restrictions have exacerbated tensions in the area.

Attacks on Palestinians by illegal Israeli settlers also push young Palestinians to join armed groups in the West Bank, the daily warned.

“This situation can’t continue. We are on the verge of a major explosion in Judea and Samaria (West Bank),” another senior military officer said.

The Israeli officers warned that provocations by government officials as Ben-Gvir’s intrusions into the Al-Aqsa Mosque and his attempts to allow Jewish prayers at the flashpoint site risk inflaming tensions in the West Bank and the whole Arab world.

Last week, the Israeli army launched its largest military operation in the northern West Bank in two decades, killing at least 40 people and causing massive destruction in the area.

Tensions have intensified throughout the occupied West Bank as Israel persists in its offensive on the Gaza Strip, which has killed over 40,900 Palestinians, mostly women and children, since last Oct. 7.

At least 692 individuals have since been killed and more than 5,700 injured by Israeli gunfire in the occupied West Bank since that time, according to the Health Ministry.

The escalation follows a significant ruling by the International Court of Justice on July 19, which declared Israel’s decades-long occupation of Palestinian territories unlawful and called for the evacuation of all settlements in the West Bank and East Jerusalem according to Anadolu.

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Adina Says Bibi’s Army Don’t Know Zilch About Gaza Tunnels

The Israeli media quoted Adina Moshe, a former Israeli captive held by Hamas in Gaza, as saying the Israeli internal security service (Shabak) asked her to draw a map of the tunnels in Gaza, “because they don’t know anything about them.”

Moshe, who was released in a previous exchange deal last November, told the Shabak investigator who visited her after her release that the tunnels in the Gaza Strip are “a huge, large labyrinth that extends underground throughout the Strip, and military pressure will not help bring back the prisoners.”

She said that Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is lying, and that he and the army do not know anything about the tunnels of the Islamic Resistance Movement (Hamas) in the Gaza Strip.

During her speech at the protests demanding a prisoner exchange deal with Gaza, Moshe noted that the Shin Bet investigator asked her to explain what Hamas’s tunnels looked like, what their branches were and where they were located, which made it clear to her that the Israeli security services knew nothing about the tunnels.

Moshe told the investigator that the tunnels were “a huge, vast labyrinth that runs underground across the entire Strip. It’s not one tunnel, but a network of endless tunnels.”

When they asked her to draw the tunnels in Gaza, Moshe told the Shin Bet that she wasn’t a painter, which she considered further proof that they knew nothing about them.

The New York Times reported last week that the tunnels in Gaza were an underground nightmare for the Israeli army and the core of Hamas’s ability to survive.

According to the newspaper, Israeli intelligence officials estimate that there are about 160 kilometers of tunnels under Khan Yunis, the second largest city in southern Gaza according to JO24.

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Will Israel be Held to Count For Her Death?

An autopsy report of Aysenur Ezgi Eygi, a Turkish-American activist, has confirmed she was killed by an Israeli sniper’s bullet to the head, Nablus governor Ghassan Daghlas said on Saturday.

Eygi, who was participating in a demonstration against illegal Israeli settlements in the town of Beita, was shot by Israeli forces on Friday according to Anadolu.

In a statement to Anadolu, Daghlas said the autopsy results indicated Eygi’s cause of death was a gunshot wound inflicted by a sniper, specifically targeting her head. Eygi had been rushed to a nearby hospital where she was declared dead upon arrival.

He said the examination was conducted late Friday night at the Forensic Medicine Institute, An-Najah National University in Nablus.

Palestinian officials had earlier suggested Eygi’s death was likely the result of deliberate targeting by an Israeli sniper.

According to Turkish Foreign Ministry sources, information about Eygi’s death was shared with the Turkish consulate in Jerusalem on Friday.

The sources indicated that Eygi may have been intentionally targeted by an Israeli sniper using live ammunition rather than rubber bullets.

Eygi, 26, a dual citizen of Türkiye and the US, had been actively involved in solidarity movements supporting Palestinian rights. Her death has sparked outrage and calls for accountability from both local and international communities.

The Israeli military has yet to comment on the specifics of the incident or the findings of the autopsy.

Eygi’s killing echoes the case of American-Palestinian journalist Shireen Abu Akleh, who was killed in a similar manner in 2022.

Shireen, a senior Al Jazeera journalist widely respected for her extensive coverage of Palestine and Israel, was shot in the head on May 11, 2022 while covering an Israeli military raid on the Jenin refugee camp in the West Bank city of Hebron. She was wearing a press jacket and a helmet.

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ICC Chief Warned Not to Issue Arrest Warrant Against Netanyahu

Karim Khan, chief prosecutor of the International Criminal Court (ICC), revealed he faced significant pressure from world leaders not to issue arrest warrants for Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. In an interview with the BBC, Khan stated “several leaders and others told me, advised me, and cautioned me” against pursuing the warrants, underscoring the political tensions surrounding the court’s actions.

Despite the external pressure, Khan defended the ICC’s decision to seek warrants against Netanyahu, emphasizing that justice must be applied equally to all nations. He noted the importance of demonstrating that the court upholds common legal standards in addressing war crimes according to the Quds News Network.

Khan had previously announced that the ICC was seeking arrest warrants for both Netanyahu and Israeli Defense Minister Yoav Gallant over war crimes, including the use of starvation as a method of warfare, murder, targeting civilians, and extermination.

The prosecutor also welcomed the UK government’s recent decision to drop its opposition to the arrest warrants. In July, the British government reversed its stance, allowing the ICC to move forward with its pursuit of charges against the Israeli leaders.

Khan acknowledged that the arrest warrants remain confidential and that world leaders were speculating on the evidence presented. However, he stressed that the ICC would remain focused on ensuring that justice is seen to be done, despite the challenges and pressures from the international community.

Meanwhile and in an interview with Japan’s Yomiuri Shimbun last week, Karim Khan revealed that ICC officials were receiving personal “threats” from supporters of both Russia and Israel. Khan cautioned, “If we allow these types of attacks … threats … to dismantle or erode the legal institutions that have been built since the Second World War, does anybody believe it will end with the International Criminal Court?”

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