A gunman crossing from Jordan killed three Israeli civilians at the Allenby Bridge border in the occupied West Bank before security forces shot him dead on Sunday, Israeli authorities said.

It was the first attack of its kind along the border with Jordan since Palestinian Islamist group Hamas carried out an assault on southern Israel on October 7, sparking the war in Gaza that has ratcheted up tensions across the region.

The attack took place in a commercial cargo area under Israeli control where Jordanian trucks offload cargo entering the West Bank, officials said. The crossing, also known as the King Hussein Bridge, is about midway between Amman and Jerusalem just north of the Dead Sea.

“A terrorist approached the area of the Allenby Bridge from Jordan in a truck, exited the truck and opened fire at the Israeli security forces operating at the bridge,” the Israeli military said.

“The terrorist was eliminated by the security forces, three Israeli civilians were pronounced dead as a result of the attack,” it added.

Shortly after, Israel closed all three of its land border crossings with Jordan, according to the Israel Airports Authority which oversees such routes.

A Jordanian border official said at least two dozen Jordanian truck drivers in the offloading area had been detained by Israel’s military for interrogation.

Israel and Jordan signed a peace treaty in 1994 and have close security ties. Dozens of trailers cross daily from Jordan, with goods from Jordan and the Gulf that supply both the West Bank and Israeli markets.

“This is a difficult day,” Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said. “A loathsome terrorist murdered in cold blood three of our civilians.”

Hamas official Sami Abu Zuhri praised the attack, referring to it as a response to Israel’s offensive in Gaza. “We expect many more similar actions,” he said. (Reporting by Ilan Rosenberg, Ari Rabinovitch and Suleiman Al-Khalidi; Additional reporting by Ahmed Elimam; Editing by Hugh Lawson and Andrew Heavens)

In Gaza, meanwhile, an Israeli airstrike early on Sunday killed five people, including two women, two children and a senior official in the civil defence — first responders who operate under the Hamas-run government.

The civil defence said the strike targeted the home of its deputy director for north Gaza, Mohammed Morsi, in the urban Jabaliya refugee camp.

There was no immediate comment from the Israeli military. The army says it tries to avoid harming civilians and only targets militants.

Gaza’s health ministry says over 40,000 Palestinians have been killed in Gaza since the war erupted 11 months ago. It does not differentiate between fighters and civilians in its count. The war has caused vast destruction and displaced around 90 per cent of Gaza’s population of 2.3 million, often multiple times.

Hamas-led militants killed some 1,200 people, mostly civilians, in the October 7 attack on Israel. They abducted another 250, and are still holding around 100 of them after releasing most of the rest in exchange for Palestinians imprisoned by Israel during a weeklong cease-fire last November. Around a third of the remaining hostages inside Gaza are believed to be dead.

The US, Qatar and Egypt have spent months trying to broker a cease-fire and the return of the hostages, but the negotiations have repeatedly bogged down.

The Palestinian health ministry in the West Bank says at least 691 Palestinians have been killed there since the start of the war. Most appear to have been militants killed during Israeli military operations, but the toll also includes civilian bystanders and rock-throwing protesters.