Dr. Jawad Anani, former Jordanian Deputy Prime Minister, confirmed that Israel, which is floundering, cannot, from a military standpoint, open a gate of 300 kilometers or more that would be liable to explode.
This came in Dr. Al-Anani’s comment on the killing of 3 Israelis by gunfire near the Allenby Crossing (King Hussein Bridge) between Jordan and the West Bank, in an operation that is the first of its kind since the start of the Israeli aggression on Gaza on October 7, and the escalation of Israeli attacks in the occupied West Bank.
“Jordan is a sovereign state with a strong army and many military retirees who know how to use weapons, so the Israelis will not get involved in opening a new front,” he said in an interview with Tel Aviv Tribune.
Regarding the possibility of taking exceptional measures after the operation, the former Jordanian official explained that Israel had previously tried, when it built an airport in Eilat, to divert many passengers coming from the West Bank to the port of Eilat instead of coming to Alia International Airport in the capital Amman, but it failed, and “it had previously tried many things in this regard to no avail.”
He pointed out that there is only one crossing directly with Israel, which is the Sheikh Hussein Bridge in northern Jordan, and there is the Allenby Bridge and the Eilat Road, meaning that there are no other roads and crossings that can be opened, stressing that the crossing currently available for the passage of trucks and goods is the King Hussein Bridge crossing.
A Jordanian security source revealed to Tel Aviv Tribune that King Hussein Bridge was closed in both directions until further notice.
Dr. Al-Anani also stressed that the current loud outcry in Israel is for local consumption, because closing the King Hussein Bridge – as it is called in Jordan – and the Karameh Crossing as it is called on the Palestinian side – will harm the Israelis more than the Jordanians, “because they are the ones who monopolize the economy of the West Bank due to the occupation and reap billions of dollars annually from that, and they do not want to lose this market.”
The former political official and economic expert expected that military entities within Israel would pressure the government to end the problem as quickly as possible, and there might be an agreement on some security measures.
He considered that what happened on the King Hussein Bridge on Saturday morning was an isolated incident, “but under the current circumstances such an operation could happen,” and asked: “Why do we assume that the Jordanians will act with the rationality that Israel expects from them?” Pointing out that the perpetrator of today’s operation comes from a clan that provided many men in the war with Israel.
He stressed that Jordan suffered from the practices of Israel, which attempted to kill the leader of the Islamic Resistance Movement (Hamas), Khaled Meshaal, in Amman, and other incidents that Jordan dealt with rationally. He said, “Why does Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu blame others, while he is always ahead in criminality?”
It is noteworthy that the Jordanian Ministry of Interior announced that a Jordanian driver was the one who opened fire at the Allenby crossing, which resulted in the killing of 3 Israelis, and the perpetrator of the operation, whose body Amman is coordinating to receive.
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 was a Jordanian citizen named Maher Diab Hussein Al-Jazi, a resident of the Al-Hussainiya area in Ma’an Governorate” south of Amman.
She stressed that “the incident was 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.”
