Israel returns body of Jordanian killed by its forces in East Jerusalem

Israeli authorities yesterday returned the body of a Jordanian citizen who was killed on Friday to his family, a lawyer for the Palestinian Committee of Prisoners’ Affairs said.

Muhammad Mahmoud said that the body of 28-year-old Said Hayil Amr was returned to Jordan yesterday afternoon via the Allenby Bridge border crossing between Jordan and the occupied West Bank.

Israeli border police killed Amr after he allegedly attempted to carry out a stabbing attack outside Damascus Gate in occupied East Jerusalem.

However, his family and witnesses have disputed the Israeli police’s claims of the incident saying that Amr did not constitute a threat at the time of his death and that the Jordanian citizen “never expressed extremist ideology, was never affiliated to any organisation, or joined any political activities.”

Amr was killed amid a three-day spike in violence which also saw the killing of four Palestinians at the hands of Israeli security forces.