Two Israeli soldiers were killed in a shooting and stabbing attack near Allenby Crossing between the West Bank and Jordan on Thursday. The assailant was a Jordanian who had been driving a humanitarian aid truck headed for the Gaza Strip.
The perpetrator arrived at Allenby Crossing from the Jordanian side at around 3 p.m., driving a truck transporting humanitarian aid intended for the Gaza Strip. Upon his arrival, he opened fire at soldiers at the crossing with a handgun, before the truck could be inspected, a preliminary military investigation found.
He then got out of the truck and, after his gun apparently jammed, stabbed the two soldiers repeatedly until security guards at the crossing opened fire at him, killing him.
The slain soldiers were named as: Lt. Col. (res.) Yitzhak Harosh, 68, a reservist in the Civil Administration, from Jerusalem, and Sgt. Oran Hershko, 20, a liaison officer with foreign forces in the IDF’s Tevel international cooperation unit, from Tel Mond.
The Israel Defense Forces confirmed that security forces had “neutralized the terrorist” at the scene of the attack, adding that troops were carrying out scans in the area for additional suspects and briefly encircled the nearby West Bank town of Jericho. The IDF lifted its partial closure on the city after an hour.
Israel’s Foreign Ministry confirmed that the attacker was a citizen of Jordan, and blamed the assault on Jordanian incitement.
Lt. Col. (res.) Yitzhak Harosh and Sgt. Oran Hershko, who were killed in an attack at Allenby Crossing, September 18, 2025. (Israel Defense Forces)
“Israel facilitates humanitarian aid to Gaza, and the terrorists exploit it to murder Israelis,” wrote the Foreign Ministry.
“A Jordanian who was supposed to drive a humanitarian aid truck to Gaza, murdered two Israelis at the Allenby border crossing,” the ministry wrote on X, using uncharacteristically pugnacious language. “This is yet another result of the vile incitement in Jordan. This is the result of the echoing of Hamas’s campaign of lies.”
Across the border, Jordanian government spokesman Mohammad al-Momani said Jordan was monitoring reports of a security incident at the Allenby Crossing.
IDF troops operate at the scene of an attack at Allenby Crossing between Jordan and the West Bank, September 18, 2025. (Israel Defense Forces)
In a statement later on Thursday evening, the Jordanian Foreign Ministry announced that the country’s security services had launched an investigation into “the shooting incident” on the Israeli side of the order crossing.
The foreign ministry said Jordan “condemned and rejected” the attack “as a violation of international law, Jordan’s interests, and its ability to deliver humanitarian aid to the Gaza Strip.
Sharing more details about the assailant, the statement named him as Abd al-Mutalib al-Qaisi, a 57-year-old who had started working as a truck driver distributing aid to Gaza just three months ago.
No terror group immediately claimed responsibility for the attack.
According to Israel’s Coordinator of Government Activities in the Territories, since the beginning of the war in Gaza in October 2023, nearly 10,000 trucks of aid, or over 144,000 tons, have been transferred to the Gaza Strip from Jordan using land crossings with Israel and the West Bank. The total represents some 7% of all aid deliveries.
An Israeli security source told Kan news that the deadly attack would likely interfere with Gaza aid delivery schedules, as the Israeli side of Allenby Crossing, as well as the route from the crossing to the Gaza border, would be closed for an unspecified period of time.
The IDF confirmed as much, saying on Thursday evening that it was recommending to the country’s political leadership to temporarily halt the transport of Gaza-bound aid through the Allenby Crossing.
IDF Chief of Staff Lt. Gen. Eyal Zamir issued the recommendation following consultations with COGAT chief Maj. Gen. Ghassan Alian and Central Command chief Maj. Gen. Avi Bluth, the military said.
The aid coming through the border crossing should be halted until an investigation is completed and the inspection procedures for Jordanian drivers are updated, they recommended.
Aid will continue entering the Gaza Strip via other routes, a military official said, amid the rapidly expanding Israeli offensive in Gaza City, which has left tens of thousands of Palestinians fleeing to the south of the Strip.
The Allenby Bridge Crossing is the West Bank’s sole crossing with Jordan.
In September 2024, three Israeli men, Yohanan Shchori, Yuri Birnbaum, and Adrian Marcelo Podzamczer, were killed in a terrorist shooting at the Allenby Crossing, carried out by a Jordanian truck driver.
The following month, in October 2024, two Israelis were wounded in a shooting near the Dead Sea carried out by terror operatives who had infiltrated from Jordan.
