A lone infiltrator from Jordan was killed by an Israel Defense Force patrol Saturday while trying to break through the security fence along the western bank of the Jordan River near the Damya Bridge.
The intruder was carrying a single gasoline bomb and a Koran but was otherwise unarmed.
According to military sources, the IDF soldiers found the infiltrator by following his footprints, the shot him fatally after he failed to respond to their challenge. There were no Israeli casualties.
In another troubling incident over the weekend, an Israel navy gunboat stopped a Lebanese ferry at sea Friday night and seized six Lebanese and Palestinian passengers who were en route to Cyprus.
According to Israeli sources, four of the Palestinians admitted under questioning that they had been trained in Libya for terrorist activities.
The two other passengers were released.
The infiltration incident was the eighth of its kind from Jordan this year, a worrisome fact for Israel after years of sharing a largely quiet border with the Arab state.
The two most recent previous incidents, both last month, each resulted in the death of an Israeli army officer.
After those attacks, Jordan’s King Hussein had a confidential message conveyed to Prime Minister Yitzhak Shamir, assuring him Jordan had not changed its longstanding policy of trying to prevent infiltration of Israel from its territory.
The Archive of the Jewish Telegraphic Agency includes articles published from 1923 to 2008. Archive stories reflect the journalistic standards and practices of the time they were published.
