Muslim Brotherhood in Jordan identifies two attackers killed by Israel as group members
Israel reported deaths of at least eight soldiers after crossing the Lebanon border. PHOTO: REUTERS
The Muslim Brotherhood in Jordan on Friday said that two attackers who were killed by the Israeli army after crossing the border were members of the organization.
The attackers were "members of the group and always participated in events in solidarity with Gaza and in support of the resistance", Muslim Brotherhood spokesman Moath al-Khawaldeh told AFP.
The Israeli military said its troops killed two armed assailants on Friday who had crossed into Israel from Jordan and lightly wounded two soldiers, in a rare attack in the border area.
"Two terrorists who crossed from Jordan into Israeli territory south of the Dead Sea were eliminated by IDF (army) soldiers," a military statement said, adding that a third attacker was thought to have fled the scene.
Two Israeli soldiers, one of whom was a reservist, were lightly wounded in an exchange of fire with the attackers, the army said, as forces were searching the area "due to the suspicion of the presence of an additional terrorist".
Brotherhood named the two attackers as Hussam Abu Ghazaleh and Amer Qawoos.
Palestinian organization Hamas, which has fought Israeli forces in Gaza since the October 7 attack last year that sparked the war in the territory, had called the attack from Jordan "a significant development in the ongoing battle".
The Qatar-based leadership of Hamas praised the shooting attack "targeting soldiers of the Zionist occupation army", adding in a statement that it "confirms" the continued Arab support for their cause.
Israel's retaliatory military offensive in Gaza has killed 42,500 people, a majority of them civilians, according to figures issued by the Hamas-run territory's health ministry and acknowledged by the UN as reliable.
Jordan in 1994 became the second Arab country to sign a peace treaty with Israel, and their shared border has remained largely calm since then.
Last month, a Jordanian gunman killed three Israeli guards at Jordan's border crossing with the occupied West Bank -- the first such attack since the 1990s.