Israeli soldiers on Monday fatally shot a Jordanian judge of Palestinian origin at the Allenby Bridge after he tried to seize a soldier’s gun and then threatened two soldiers with a metal bar, according to the Israeli military.
It was a rare instance of violence at the bridge, which links Jordan and the West Bank, and heightened tensions not only between Israel and the Palestinians but also between Israel and Jordan. The Jordanian foreign minister summoned the ranking Israeli diplomat in Amman, Jordan’s capital, for a reprimand and “strongly condemned” the shooting, demanding for an Israeli investigation into the episode. The Palestinian Authority called for an international investigation.
The Judge was identified as Raed Zeiter, 38, a judge in the magistrates court in Amman who had moved to Jordan from the West Bank city of Nablus in 2011.
Col. Yaron Beit-On, who oversees Israeli forces in the Jordan Valley, told reporters that Zeiter came into the West Bank from Jordan on a bus carrying 30 people at about 9:30 a.m. After soldiers completed a routine check of the bus, Beit-On said, Zeiter tried to grab one of their guns and succeeded in obtaining a four-foot metal bar with a mirror at one end that the soldiers use to check the underside of vehicles at the crossing.
“He shouted, ‘Allahu akbar, Allahu akbar,’” or “God is great,” Beit-On said. “When the soldiers understood they had no way to handle him, they used a gun and they shot him. They were in danger.”
He added that Zeiter was shot first in the leg and then again, but he did not yet know how many times.