Two Soldiers Injured by Gunman Who Hid on Bank of Jordan River

Two Israel Defense Force soldiers were slightly wounded Saturday morning, when their patrol was ambushed near the Jordan River, south of the Sea of Galilee, by a gunman believed to be a Jordanian soldier.

The incident was the third in the Jordan Valley in the past 10 days and the sixth this year in which Jordanian soldiers were suspected of attacking Israeli troops.

According to the IDF, the gunman left behind six magazines of a Jordanian army-issue M-16 rifle and a towel.

Tracks were discovered in the thick reeds between the river bank and the border fence near Kibbutz Ashdot Ya’acov, where the ambush occurred. The border fence was not breached, the IDF said.

The wounded men were a Bedouin tracker, who was struck by fragments of flying stone from a ricochet bullet, and the patrol commander, whose hand was grazed.

Although the patrol returned the fire and threw grenades into the reeds, the assailant apparently escaped unharmed.

Israel holds Jordan responsible for infiltration attempts from its territory and has let Amman know it will not tolerate such activity.

The Jordanians say if their soldiers were involved they were either “demented,” “berserk” or “amok.”

IDF sources said the Jordanians have been seen clearing the ground on their side of the river in an apparent effort to deprive would-be infiltrators of concealment.

The increased number of incidents has been attributed to the effects of the Palestinian uprising in the West Bank and Gaza Strip. Many Palestinian Jordanians have family in the territories.

The most serious of the recent incidents occurred on Sept. 2, when an IDF soldier was killed in an ambush near Kfar Ruppin, in the Beit She’an Valley.