19.11.2003 A terrorist opened fire on Wednesday in the Jordanian border crossing terminal north of Eilat, wounding five people, one of them critically. The victims were members of a South American tourist group that was in the process of entering Israel from Jordan, en route to Eilat. The gunman, who slipped through the Jordanian border terminal, fired a number of bursts of automatic fire before Israeli security guards at the site killed him no-man’s land some 20 meters from the Israeli side of the terminal.
One of the wounded, a 33-year-old woman, was in critical condition and was airlifted from Eilat, a Red Sea resort, to Soroka Medical Center in Be’er Sheva. „She has been taken to surgery for a head wound,” said hospital spokeswoman Irit Bibi. „We heard the shooting, at first we lay down on the floor, then we tried to evacuate the tourists,” said a border crossing worker who refused to give her name. „We have been trained for something like this, but I never imagined it could really happen,” she said. There was no immediate claim of responsibility for the attack, which coincided with high-level internal Palestinian efforts to forge a truce encompassing all militant factions in the West Bank and Gaza Strip. Jordan condemned the attack, saying that the gunman had acted alone. „This was a individual act by a sole gunman,” Minister of State and government spokesperson Asma Khader told Reuters. „We condemn this incident and Jordan’s stance is clear against any acts of violence that target civilians,” she added. Khader said the gunman was a Jordanian truck driver, a resident of Zarqa – a predominantly Palestinian city 27 kilometers northeast of the Jordanian capital Amman, and said that Jordanian troops had searched his home. However Khader said that no arrests had been made. All five of the wounded tourists were from Ecuador, said Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Jill Reinach. The Ecuadorean Embassy had no immediate comment. The five wounded were part of a group of 39 Ecuadorean pilgrims who were touring Middle East holy sights, said Yossi Zeldish, an official from Palmer Tours who organized their trip. The pilgrims were returning from sites in Jordan and were due to cross into Egypt on Thursday to visit the St. Catherine’s Monastery in the Sinai desert, Zeldish said. The rest of the tourist group had been taken to a hotel in Eilat and city psychologists were helping them deal with the trauma, Zeldish said. „A group of tourists which was in the process of entering Israel with its baggage, at the same time there were a number of trucks on the Jordanian side that were to enter and unload cattle,” said Menachem Zelihovsky, a senior official of the Israeli Ports Authority. „The terrorist apparently hid among the trucks, opening fire about 20 meters from the entrance of the terminal, firing at the terminal. He hit a number of tourists. Guards of the airports authority liquidated him. The incident was quick, and ended with the terrorist’s death.” Israeli security forces launched a search of the area, fearing more terrorists may have been involved in the incident. Jordan and Israel established diplomatic relations in 1994. Incidents of cross-border violence are rare, although in 1997, seven Israeli schoolchildren were killed by a Jordanian soldier in a border area near the northern Israeli town of Beit She’an. BPI.
