Two die in shooting at Israeli embassy in Jordan

Two Jordanians were killed and two others, a Jordanian

and an Israeli, were wounded in a shooting incident on Sunday in a

building inside the Israeli embassy complex in Jordan's capital Amman.

Police

said the two Jordanians, working for a furniture firm, had entered the

embassy compound before the shooting. One man was killed by a gunshot

and the other died from wounds inflicted during a shooting incident.

The two wounded men had been rushed to hospital, police said.

Israel has imposed a ban on reporting the incident and has made no public comment.

Violence

against Israelis is rare in Jordan, a tightly policed country that is

also a staunch regional ally of the United States.

But

tensions have escalated between the two countries since Israel

installed metal detectors at entry points to Al-Aqsa mosque in Jerusalem

after two Israeli policemen were shot dead by three Arab-Israeli gunmen

on Friday near the site.

The new security measures have triggered the bloodiest spate of Isreli-Palestinian violence for years.

Jordan has called for the removal of the metal detectors and thousands of Jordanians have protested against the Israeli move.

In

their statement, the Jordanian police said that after the attack they

had sealed the heavily protected embassy in an affluent part of the

capital and deployed dozens of anti-terrorism forces.

Initial checks suggested the two Jordanian men had entered the embassy compound as workmen, they said.

Many of Jordan's 7 million citizens are of Palestinian

origin. They or their parents or grandparents were expelled or fled to

Jordan in the fighting that accompanied the creation of Israel in 1948.

Israel

has in the past given repeated assurances that it understands Jordan's

concerns and does not seek to alter the status quo in the Muslim holy

sites of Jerusalem.