Embassy Staff Return to Israel After Amman Shooting Incident
The staff of Israel’s embassy in Amman, returned from Jordan on Monday night, hours after a telephone call between King Abdullah and Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu.
Israel Security Agency (Shin Bet) head Nadav Argaman visited the Jordanian capital earlier in the day to facilitate an end to the crisis which erupted Sunday after a security guard at the embassy shot dead two Jordanians after one of them stabbed him in the back. The security guard was among the staff who arrived at the Allenby border crossing after reports from Jordan had suggested security officials would prevent his return.
A short statement from the Prime Minister’s Office said that the return of Israel’s diplomatic emissaries had been enabled thanks to “close cooperation between Israel and Jordan over the past day.”
The statement added than Netanyahu had spoken on the phone with the security guard and with ambassador to Jordan, Eynat Schlein, after they crossed back into Israel.
Jordan’s Petra news agency said earlier in day that King Abdullah and Netanyahu had spoken to discuss the Temple Mount crisis, but made no mention of the embassy incident and its aftermath.
During the phone call, the Jordanian monarch stressed the need to find an immediate solution and remove the causes of the ongoing crisis at the Temple Mount compound. According to Petra he also called for the situation at the compound to be restored to what it was prior to the outbreak of the crisis and to reopen the Al-Aqsa Mosque.
While the report did not mention Israel’s stationing of metal detectors at the entrance to the Temple Mount compound in response to the killing of two Israeli policeman at the site on July 14, it said that King Abdullah had “emphasized the necessity of removing measures adopted by the Israeli side since the outbreak of the crisis and the importance of agreeing on measures to prevent the reoccurrence of such escalation in the future, in a manner that ensures respect for the historical and legal status in Al-Haram al-Sharif [the Arabic name for the Temple Mount.”
Following the call, Netanyahu held a cons