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Human Rights Voices
While the UN devotes its human rights operations to the demonization of the democratic state of Israel above all others and condemns the United States more often than the vast majority of non-democracies around the world, the voices of real victims around the world must be heard.
U.N. Inaction on Jordan
All Actions of the UN Human Rights System Critical of Specific States, 2024
Yuri Birnbaum (left), Yohanan Shchori (center), and Adrian Marcelo Podzamczer, killed in a terror shooting attack at the Allenby Bridge Crossing, September 8, 2024. (Courtesy)
Jordan, September 8, 2024
3 Israelis killed in terror shooting at crossing between West Bank and Jordan
Original source
Three Israeli men were killed in a terrorist shooting attack at the Allenby Bridge Crossing between Jordan and the West Bank on Sunday morning, authorities said.
The attack was carried out by a Jordanian truck driver who had arrived from Jordan. The crossing, also known as the King Hussein Bridge, is the West Bank’s sole crossing with Jordan.
The three victims were named Yohanan Shchori, 61, a father of six from the West Bank settlement of Ma’ale Efraim, Yuri Birnbaum, 65, from the settlement of Na’ama, and Adrian Marcelo Podzamczer, from the settlement city of Ariel.
According to the military and Israel Airports Authority officials — the latter of which manages the land crossing — the gunman got out of the truck he was driving during an inspection at the terminal and opened fire at several of the crossing’s workers, killing three.
IAA security guards returned fire at the terrorist, killing him.
He was identified by Israeli security sources as Maher Dhiab Hussein al-Jazi, 39, a Jordanian national from the southern Jordan town of Udhruh, east of Petra.
The Magen David Adom ambulance service said its medics treated the three men at the scene, but were forced to declare their deaths.
Footage circulating online purported to show the moment of the attack.
The Israel Defense Forces described the shooting as a terror attack. It published an image of the handgun used by the terrorist.
IDF sappers dispatched to the scene later ruled out suspicions that the truck in which a terrorist arrived had been rigged with explosives, the military said.
Terror groups Hamas and Palestinian Islamic Jihad both welcomed the attack.
Hamas hailed the attacker as “one of Jordan’s brave men.”
In a statement, it said that the attack was a “natural response to the holocaust carried out by the Nazi Zionist enemy against our people in Gaza and the occupied West Bank, and its plans for the Judaization of the Al Aqsa mosque.”
The terror group further called on people in Arab and Muslim countries to rise up in support of Palestinians.
On its Telegram channel, the PIJ described the attacker as a “hero” and said the assault is an “expression of the sentiments of the Jordanian people and the Arab and Muslim peoples towards the brutal massacres committed by the enemy.”
“This heroic attack and similar ones are the only response that the American administration understands,” the statement added, accusing the United States of being an “accomplice” to Israel.
Israeli and Jordanian authorities both announced that the crossing had been closed until further notice following the deadly shooting attack.
The Jordanian interior ministry also said that authorities had begun an investigation into the attack.
The IAA said that in addition to the closure of Allenby Bridge, the other land crossings with Jordan — the Rabin Crossing near Eilat and the Jordan River Crossing near Beit She’an — were closed at the request of security authorities.
Israel and Jordan signed a peace treaty in 1994 and have close security ties. Dozens of trailers cross daily from Jordan, with goods from Jordan and the Gulf that supply both the West Bank and Israeli markets.
Palestinians can only use the Allenby Bridge Crossing to enter Jordan from the West Bank, while Israelis generally use the Rabin and Jordan River crossings.
Violence in the West Bank has surged in the past year, following the October 7 Hamas terror onslaught in southern Israel, in which some 1,200 people were massacred and 251 were taken hostage.
Since October 7, troops have arrested some 5,000 wanted Palestinians across the West Bank, including more than 2,000 affiliated with Hamas.
According to the Palestinian Authority health ministry, more than 670 West Bank Palestinians have been killed in that time. The IDF says the vast majority of them were gunmen killed in exchanges of fire, rioters who clashed with troops or terrorists carrying out attacks.
During the same period, 32 people, including Israeli security personnel, have been killed in terror attacks in Israel and the West Bank. Another six members of the security forces were killed in clashes with terror operatives in the West Bank.
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