AMMAN: A Jordanian was killed and an Israeli seriously wounded in a shooting on Sunday at the Jewish state’s embassy in Amman, a security source and the police said.

Another Jordanian was wounded “in a shooting at a residential building inside the compound of the Israeli embassy”, the police said in a statement.

It said police were notified in the late afternoon of a shooting at the compound in the residential Rabiyeh neighbourhood of Amman.

Police deployed to the scene and surrounded the area, the statement said.

“An initial investigation indicated that three people were wounded, one an Israeli who was taken to hospital,” it said, adding that two Jordanians were wounded and one later died of his injuries.

The police statement said the two Jordanians had gone into the building to carry out “carpentry work”.

Jordanian security forces deployed in the streets around the embassy.

Israel and Jordan are bound by a 1994 peace treaty, but tensions have been high in recent days after Israel’s security measures at the Al Aqsa mosque site in annexed east Jerusalem.

On Friday, thousands of Jordanians took to the streets of Amman to denounce the Israeli measures.

A crowd estimated at more than 8,000 turned out for a demonstration called by Islamist movements and leftist parties.

Israel shut off the mosque compound on July 14 after Arab Israelis attacked and killed two police officers nearby.

Violence flared between Israeli security forces and Palestinians who are demanding that Israel remove metal detectors installed outside the site after the attack.

Israel’s security cabinet met on Sunday to review the decision to install metal detectors in the wake of escalating tensions with the Muslim world.

The ministers met amid mounting controversy at home, with some critics saying the government had acted without sufficiently considering the repercussions of introducing new security measures at the region’s most sensitive shrine and the epicenter of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

Published in Dawn, July 24th, 2017