Israel embassy shooting complicates shrine crisis

JERUSALEM, Middle East - An Israeli security guard shot dead a Jordanian who attacked him with a screwdriver at the Israeli embassy compound in Amman, while a second Jordanian was accidentally killed, officials and a security source said.

The incident on Sunday came with tensions high over new Israeli security measures at a highly sensitive holy site in Jerusalem, but it was not clear if there was any link.

The Jordanian had come to an apartment in an annex building at the Israeli embassy, to install furniture and stabbed the security guard in the back with the screwdriver, Israel's Foreign Ministry said.

Tensions high over security measures at Al-Aqsa mosque

The guard then responded by shooting dead the Jordanian worker, while the apartment owner who was there at the time was wounded and later died from his injuries, according to the ministry and a security source.

The security guard was lightly wounded, the ministry statement said.

The security source in Amman had confirmed earlier that two Jordanians were killed in a shooting in the area of the embassy.

Relatives of one of the Jordanians, Mohammad Al Dawaimeh, a 17-year-old boy, held protests on Monday calling for investigations to reveal the truth.

"We demand the truth. Mohammad is a child. We do not know what happened. He has no political orientations whatsoever," said Emran Dawaimeh, a relative of the boy.

The injured Israeli is "deputy director of security at the Israeli embassy and is still receiving treatment in hospital", the source added.

An investigation into the shooting was still under way, the police said.

Israel and Jordan are bound by a 1994 peace treaty, but tensions have been high in recent days after Israel put in place security measures at a highly sensitive holy site in annexed east Jerusalem.

Israel installed metal detectors at entrances to the site following an attack nearby that killed two policemen.

Palestinians view the move as Israel asserting further control over the Haram al-Sharif mosque compound, known to Jews as Temple Mount.

On Friday, thousands of Jordanians took to the streets of Amman after the weekly prayer to denounce the Israeli measures at the holy compound, which includes Al-Aqsa mosque and the Dome of the Rock.

Jordan is the official custodian of Muslim holy sites in Jerusalem.

Israel shut off the mosque compound on July 14 after Arab Israelis attacked and killed two police officers.

It reopened it on July 16, but with the metal detectors in place, stoking Palestinian anger.

Violence has since flared between Israeli security forces and Palestinians who are demanding that Israel remove the metal detectors.

Afp - Ap - Xinhua