Israel to ‘Gradually’ Reopen Jordan Embassy

Policemen are seen near the Israeli embassy in Amman, Jordan July 23, 2017. (Reuters)
Policemen are seen near the Israeli embassy in Amman, Jordan July 23, 2017. (Reuters)
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Israel to ‘Gradually’ Reopen Jordan Embassy

Policemen are seen near the Israeli embassy in Amman, Jordan July 23, 2017. (Reuters)
Policemen are seen near the Israeli embassy in Amman, Jordan July 23, 2017. (Reuters)

Israel announced on Tuesday that it was “gradually” reopening its embassy in Jordan following a shut down that was prompted by a deadly shooting in its vicinity last year.

The embassy in Amman is in the process of "gradual reopening," Israeli foreign ministry spokesman Emmanuel Nahshon said, without providing further details.

On July 23, a security guard for the Israeli embassy shot dead a Jordanian worker who had stabbed him in the back with a screwdriver after coming to an apartment to install furniture, according to the Israeli foreign ministry.

A second Jordanian, the apartment landlord, was also killed -- apparently by accident.

The guard, who claimed self-defense, was briefly questioned by investigators in Jordan before returning to Israel along with the rest of the embassy staff.

He received a hero's welcome from Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu along with ambassador Einat Shlein, sparking widespread anger in Jordan.

Amman later said it would not allow the embassy staff to return until Israel opened a serious investigation and offered an apology.

Israel's justice ministry said in August it was launching a police "examination" into the incident.

On January 18, Jordan said Israel had apologized for the killing of the two Jordanians as well as the killing of a Jordanian judge by an Israeli soldier at the countries' border in 2014, and agreed to compensate all three families.

A Jordanian spokesman had said that the bereaved families accepted the apology and compensation, and that Israel had met all the conditions to reopening the embassy.

Netanyahu said Israel had "expressed regret" over the July shooting and agreed to pay compensation to the Jordanian government, according to a report in the Jerusalem Post.



Israeli Fire Kills 30 in Gaza, Medics Say, as Attention Shifts to Iran 

Palestinians carry sacks and boxes of food and humanitarian aid unloaded from a World Food Program convoy that had been heading to Gaza City, in the northern Gaza Strip, Monday, June 16, 2025. (AP)
Palestinians carry sacks and boxes of food and humanitarian aid unloaded from a World Food Program convoy that had been heading to Gaza City, in the northern Gaza Strip, Monday, June 16, 2025. (AP)
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Israeli Fire Kills 30 in Gaza, Medics Say, as Attention Shifts to Iran 

Palestinians carry sacks and boxes of food and humanitarian aid unloaded from a World Food Program convoy that had been heading to Gaza City, in the northern Gaza Strip, Monday, June 16, 2025. (AP)
Palestinians carry sacks and boxes of food and humanitarian aid unloaded from a World Food Program convoy that had been heading to Gaza City, in the northern Gaza Strip, Monday, June 16, 2025. (AP)

Israeli gunfire and strikes killed at least 30 people across the Gaza Strip on Wednesday, local health authorities said, as some Palestinians there said their plight was being forgotten as attention shifted to the air war between Israel and Iran.

The deaths included the latest in near daily killings of Palestinians seeking aid in the three weeks since Israel partially lifted a total blockade on Gaza that it had imposed for almost three months.

Medics said separate airstrikes on homes in the Maghazi refugee camp and Zeitoun neighborhood in central and northern Gaza killed at least 14 people, while five others were killed in an airstrike on a tent encampment in Khan Younis in southern Gaza.

Eleven others were killed in Israeli fire at crowds of displaced Palestinians awaiting aid trucks brought in by the United Nations along the Salahuddin road in central Gaza, medics said.

The Israel army said it was looking into the reported deaths of people waiting for food. Regarding the other strikes, it said it was "operating to dismantle Hamas military capabilities" and "feasible precautions to mitigate civilian harm."

On Tuesday, Gaza's health ministry said 397 Palestinians among those trying to get food aid had been killed and more than 3,000 wounded since aid deliveries restarted in late May.

Some in Gaza expressed concern that the latest escalations in the war between Israel and Hamas that began in October 2023 would be overlooked as the focus moved to Israel's five-day-old conflict with Iran.

"People are being slaughtered in Gaza, day and night, but attention has shifted to the Iran-Israel war. There is little news about Gaza these days," said Adel, a resident of Gaza City.

"Whoever doesn't die from Israeli bombs dies from hunger. People risk their lives every day to get food, and they also get killed and their blood smears the sacks of flour they thought they had won," he told Reuters via a chat app.

'FORGOTTEN'

Israel has been channeling much of the aid it is now allowing into Gaza through a new US- and Israeli-backed group, the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation, which operates a handful of distribution sites in areas guarded by Israeli forces.

It has said it will continue to allow aid into Gaza, home to more than 2 million people, while ensuring aid doesn't get into the hands of Hamas. Hamas denies seizing aid, saying Israel uses hunger as a weapon against the population in Gaza.

The Gaza war was triggered when Hamas-led fighters attacked Israel in October 2023, killing 1,200 and taking about 250 hostages, according to Israeli allies.

US ally Israel's subsequent military assault on Gaza has killed nearly 55,000 Palestinians, according to Gaza's health ministry, displaced almost all the territory's residents, and caused a severe hunger crisis.

The assault has led to accusations of genocide and war crimes, which Israel denies.

Palestinians in Gaza have been closely following Israel's air war with Iran, long a major supporter of Hamas.

"We are maybe happy to see Israel suffer from Iranian rockets, but at the end of the day, one more day in this war costs the lives of tens of innocent people," said 47-year-old Shaban Abed, a father of five from northern Gaza.

"We just hope that a comprehensive solution could be reached to end the war in Gaza, too. We are being forgotten," he said.