A gunman was killed and three police officers were wounded in an early morning shootout near the Israeli embassy in Amman.

Two eyewitnesses told the Reuters news agency that police patrol cars and ambulances rushed to the Al Rabia neighborhood of the Jordanian capital, where the Israeli embassy building is located, after sporadic gunfire was heard.

Authorities cordoned off the area and appealed to residents to stay indoors until the police operation was completed.

The Al Arabiya network reports that a gunman opened fire on security forces patrolling near the Israeli embassy, ​​injuring three of them. The attacker was surrounded and fell dead during the exchange of fire that followed, according to the same source.

Although security around Israel’s embassy in Amman is draconian, the area has seen frequent protests – especially since the start of the war in the Gaza Strip. Several of Jordan’s 12 million residents are of Palestinian descent – ​​either they themselves or their parents were expelled or fled to the kingdom during the conflicts that accompanied the creation of the state of Israel in 1948. Many have relatives on the other side of the Jordan River. .

The peace treaty between Jordan and Israel is criticized by a large part of the population, which considers the normalization of relations to be tantamount to a betrayal of the Palestinian struggle.