One Israeli was killed and three wounded, one of them injured seriously, when Jordanian troops suddenly opened fire on an Israeli patrol unit here shortly before noon today. The attack occurred as the patrol walked its beat about 200 yards from the Mandelbaum Gate which divides Israel’s Jerusalem from the Old City under Jordanian jurisdiction.
The crowded Musrara District of the city, where the attack took place, was thrown into confusion when the firing started. As the four men of the Israeli patrol fell, a second patrol unit rushed forward. The second unit retrieved the stricken border patrolmen while the Jordanian firing continued. Then, the firing stopped as suddenly as it had begun. It was the first time violence erupted along the Jordanian-Israeli border in the Jerusalem area in four years.
Israel immediately lodged a vigorous protest with the United Nations Truce Supervision Organization whose No-Man’s-Land headquarters are less than a mile from the scene of the attack, close to the spot where the Israeli patrolmen fell. United Nations military observers opened an investigation into the occurrence immediately.
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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.
