TEL AVIV, Israel _ Staffers based at the Israeli Embassy in Jordan returned home after a deadly shooting at the diplomatic compound in Amman that escalated tensions between the countries during an already volatile time.
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's office said Monday evening that the returning staffers included a security guard who opened fire at a man who stabbed him with a screwdriver, killing both his assailant and another Jordanian who was in the room at the time.
Jordan had initially refused to let the guard leave the country until he was investigated but Israel insisted he be released, saying he was protected from detention or interrogation by the Vienna Convention on diplomatic relations.
Netanyahu's office said in a statement that the embassy staff's return "was made possible thanks to close cooperation between Israel and Jordan." Israel had dispatched an envoy to Amman on Monday, and the prime minister had said his government was working through various channels to bring the security officer back. The breakthrough allowing the staff to return also came after U.S. envoy Jason Greenblatt traveled to Amman, following a visit to Israel.
The shooting complicated efforts to ease an explosion of deadly violence between Palestinians and Israel that erupted over new Israeli security arrangements at a contested Jerusalem shrine known to Muslims as Haram al-Sharif and to Jews as Temple Mount. The holy site _ where Muslim faithful believe the Prophet Muhammad ascended to heaven and which Jews revere as the site of their biblical temple _ is under Israeli security control but Jordan is the religious custodian.
Palestinians seek the site and the eastern sector of the city in which it lies as the capital of a future state. Israel captured the sector from Jordan in the 1967 Middle East war.
