Jordan Condemns Shooting of Israeli Diplomat

The Jordanian government on Wednesday, December 6, denounced the shooting on Tuesday of an Israeli diplomat in Amman as an "intolerable" event.

Foreign Minister Abdel Ilah al-Khatib said in a statement that the government denounced the attack against the Israeli envoy, and it would take stringent measures to prevent a recurrence of violence against Israelis in Jordan.

The diplomat, identified as Shlomo Razabi, sustained minor injuries in the left leg while driving in western Amman Tuesday night. The gunman escaped after the assault. Khatib visited Razabi in an Amman hospital shortly after the shooting incident.

On Wednesday, "Jordan's Islamic Jihad (Holy War) Resistance Movement", a previously unknown organization in the kingdom, claimed responsibility for the shooting as the police are launching a manhunt for the attacker.

This is the second attack in three weeks against an Israeli diplomat in Jordan, where anti-Israeli sentiment is running high due to Israel's excessive use of force against Palestinian protestors, which has left over 300 people dead, most of them Palestinians, and thousands of others wounded in the past nine weeks.

An Israeli diplomat escaped gun shots on November 19 when he was driving to his office in western Amman, but sustained minor injuries from his car glass broken by the bullets.

Jordan signed a peace treaty with Israel in 1994. It is one of the only two Arab countries, after Egypt, to take such a step.






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