Still tied up in the war’s hotter zones, the Israeli army engaged on two additional fronts over the weekend, with a strike against sites in Syria and defensive measures in response to a deadly terrorist incident on the Jordanian border.
Israel conducted missile strikes against several sites in Syria late on Sept. 8, Syrian state media said the following day.
The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, a UK-based war-monitoring group, said the targets included a scientific research center in Maysaf, Syria, and other sites “where Iranian militias and experts are stationed to develop weapons in Syria.”
Syrian media also reported an attack against a highway in Hama province and strikes around the coastal city of Tartus.
According to Israeli television, Syrian media reported that 25 people were killed and an estimated 32 people wounded.
Six sites were hit by at least 15 missiles in four provinces: Damascus, Homs, Hama, and Tartus.
There was no immediate comment from the Israel Defense Forces (IDF).
Israel has carried out hundreds of strikes on targets inside government-controlled areas of war-torn Syria in recent years but rarely acknowledges or discusses the operations.
The IDF released more details on a deadly terrorist attack on Sept. 8 at the Jordan border. “A terrorist approached the area of the Allenby Bridge from Jordan in a truck, exited the truck, and opened fire at the Israeli security forces operating at the bridge,” the IDF stated.
Three Israeli civilians were killed in the attack, and the terrorist was subsequently “eliminated” by the Israeli security forces, according to the IDF.
“IDF soldiers were dispatched to the scene and are currently operating to rule out the suspicion of the truck being rigged explosive,” IDF stated.
The IDF posted a photo of the weapon it said was used in the attack, which appeared to be a semiautomatic handgun.
Israel’s Magen David Adom rescue service—a national organization providing medical and blood services—said the three Israelis were all men in their 50s.
Relatives identified the gunman as Maher al-Jazi, a retired Jordanian soldier from Athroh, a town in the impoverished area of Ma'an.
The Allenby Bridge crossing, also known as the King Hussein Bridge, spans the Jordan River east of Jericho.
Israel and Jordan declared the crossing closed until further notice.
Israel also closed its two land crossings with Jordan, near Beit Shean in the north and Eilat in the south.
The incidents need to be looked at in light of Iran’s proxy war against Israel, Yoram Ettinger, an expert on Middle East affairs who has served as a consultant to Israeli and U.S. lawmakers, told The Epoch Times in an email.
Iran wants to subvert Jordan’s Hashemite monarchy, which made peace with Israel in 1994 and cooperates with it on trade and security, he said.
Tehran is involved in terrorism and drug trafficking there and smuggles weapons and explosives to terrorists in the West Bank, a region that many Israelis refer to as Judea and Samaria, Ettinger said.
The Hashemites, a minority regime from a Bedouin tribe, must contend with 2 million refugees from Syria and Iraq who live in northern Jordan, an active Muslim Brotherhood, and even fragmentation within its own Bedouin community, according to Ettinger.
The Syrian strike came a little more than a month after the assassination of Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh in Tehran, one that brought worldwide concern over a widening Middle East war depending on if and how Iran retaliated.
Israel has neither confirmed nor denied responsibility for the killing.
The Sept. 8 airstrike, Ettinger said, suggested that Israel won’t back down from countering Iran’s proxy war against it despite Tehran’s threats.
The Gaza War has complicated the Jordan–Israel relationship.
According to the Israeli newspaper Haaretz, King Abdullah II was careful to preserve ties with Israel and the United States after the war began.
He used diplomacy in the weeks after Oct. 7, 2023, to try to persuade Israel not to invade Gaza.
When that failed, he condemned Israel’s policy, recalled Jordan’s ambassador, and suspended commercial and economic agreements.
This included a water-for-energy deal, in which Israel would sell Jordan 200 million cubic meters of desalinated water per year in exchange for 600 megawatts of solar-generated electricity.
But King Abdullah continues to buy natural gas from Israel despite pressure from his parliament and the public to cancel all agreements with the Jewish state.
Regular demonstrations are held outside the Israeli embassy in Amman, Jordan, and the Jordanian foreign minister has called for Israel to be tried for war crimes.
However, Jordan contributed to Israel’s security in April, playing a decisive role in stopping Iran’s missile and drone attack.
Amman told Iran that it wouldn’t allow its air space or territory to become a combat zone.
Israel’s only pushback against Jordan for the condemnations so far has been to affirm the water-for-energy deal for only six months rather than the originally planned five years.
Israel permitted Jordanian air drops of humanitarian aid into Gaza, one of which King Abdullah, in military uniform, participated in.
Jordan’s humanitarian support for Gaza’s population does not extend to the Hamas terrorist organization, which rules Gaza.
Its leadership was expelled from Jordan and barred from reentering it.
