Israel shuts crossing that connects occupied West Bank to Jordan

Palestinian authorities claim that Israel has mandated the King Hussein Bridge’s indefinite closure, which is the only means of transportation for people and goods between Jordan and the occupied West Bank.

The bridge crossing will be closed until further notice, according to the Palestinian General Authority for Borders and Crossings on Tuesday. The crossing was also made public by the Jordanian Public Security Directorate, who stated that it would be closed “until further notice” for both passenger and cargo traffic.

The crossing was officially opened on Sunday after it had been temporarily closed following a deadly attack, making it essentially the only point for Palestinians to leave the West Bank.

At the Israeli-controlled crossing last week, a Jordanian national driving a humanitarian aid truck fatally wounded two Israeli soldiers. The Qassam Brigades, Hamas’s armed wing, blasted for the shooting.

Countermeasure to Palestinian statehood, in other words.

There are many questions up in the air about why Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has decided to completely close the border, according to Al Jazeera’s Hamdah Sahut, a journalist from Amman, in Jordan.

Sahut, who is reporting from Amman because Israel’s government has forbid Al Jazeera from reporting inside Israel and the West Bank, said that “some within Israeli media view it as one of the first countermeasures Israel is taking as a result of many countries in the international community recognising a Palestinian state.

The Palestinians from the West Bank’s only international gateway does not require entering Israel, which has occupied the area since 1967, at Karama, which is known as Karama on the Palestinian side.

As Israeli forces launched a collective punishment campaign that required the suspects’ homes to be destroyed in the West Bank and their neighbors’ work permits to be revoked, Palestinians were on edge last week as the attack left them on edge.

In addition to imposing a curfew in the West Bank city of Tulkarem a week before the bridge attack, Israeli forces raided the area and detained more than 100 Palestinians.

Palestinians’ daily movements are harrowing and humiliating because they must navigate hundreds of checkpoints and are frequently beaten by Israeli soldiers while traveling in the West Bank, according to campaigners.

Israel has launched a crackdown on the West Bank, killing more than 1, 000 Palestinians there, arresting thousands, and destroying hundreds of homes and civic infrastructure as the world has focused on Israel’s genocidal war against Gaza in the past two years. Israeli military and settler violence was at its highest level in years even before the Hamas-led Palestinian group’s attack on Israel on October 7, 2023.

Despite international demands for a Palestinian state as part of a two-state solution, Netanyahu and members of his cabinet have pledged to annex the West Bank.

However, when Netanyahu announced a new settlement expansion on Palestinian land, he declared last week that there would “no Palestinian state.” Achieving a sovereign Palestinian state is a major challenge due to settlements, which are against international law.

France joined four other nations on Monday to declare Palestinian statehood. A day earlier, Australia, Canada, Portugal, Portugal, and the United Kingdom formally recognized Palestine.