Jordan said on Monday it would leave all options open in its response to what it described as Israel’s failure to distinguish between military and civilian targets in its intense bombing and invasion of the Gaza Strip.
Prime Minister Bisher Al-Khasawneh did not clarify what further steps Jordan will take after recalling its ambassador from Israel a few days ago to protest Israel’s bombing of Gaza following the October 7 Hamas attack.
Jordan announced last week that it will not allow the Israeli ambassador, who left Amman shortly after the Hamas attack, to return to resume his current duties, and said he was persona non grata.
Al-Khasawneh, whose country signed a peace treaty with Israel in 1994, told official media that Jordan had all options available to deal with what he described as Israeli aggression against Gaza and its repercussions.
He said Israel’s siege of the densely populated Gaza Strip is not self-defense as it claims.
He added that the Israeli attack makes no distinction between civilian and military targets and extends to safe areas and ambulances.
Israel has denied intentionally bombing civilian targets in densely populated areas and said Hamas uses civilians as human shields, digs tunnels under hospitals and uses ambulances to transport its fighters.
Diplomats familiar with Jordan’s mindset said the country is reviewing its economic, political and security relations with Israel and is also considering suspending further steps in implementing the peace treaty if bloodshed in Gaza worsens.
The war between Israel and Hamas has reawakened old fears in Jordan, which hosts large numbers of Palestinian refugees, that Israel would seize the opportunity and expel Palestinians en masse from the occupied West Bank, where attacks by Israeli settlers against Palestinians have increased after the Hamas attack. attack on 7 October.
These fears have increased since Israel’s coalition government, which belongs to the religious nationalist movement and is considered the most right-wing government ever, took power last year, and some extremists have adopted the principle that “Jordan It’s Palestine.”
Officials said King Abdullah raised these concerns during his talks with NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg in Brussels, warning of widespread violence in the West Bank and East Jerusalem if attacks by Jewish settlers against Palestinian civilians were not curbed.
Foreign Minister Ayman Safadi said any move to relocate Palestinians to Jordan, which shares a common border with the West Bank, was a “red line” amounting to a declaration of war.
Al-Safadi said last week that Jordan would oppose any attempt by Israel to expel Palestinians in an attempt to change geography and demography.
Security sources say the Jordanian army has already strengthened its positions along the border.
Diplomats said Jordan’s concerns were at the top of issues discussed in talks with Amiri Secretary of State Anthony Blinken since the outbreak of the Gaza war, and would likely be raised in a meeting with William Burns, director of Amiri Central Intelligence Agency. (CIA), during his next stop in Jordan.