Israel under pressure over holy site, shooting at Israeli embassy in Amman

Israel faced mounting pressure on Monday over tougher security at a sensitive Jerusalem holy site after a shooting at its embassy in Jordan raised further concerns following a weekend of deadly unrest.

Two Jordanians were killed and an Israeli wounded in the shooting on Sunday. The two Jordanians, working for a furniture firm, had entered the embassy compound before the shooting, the police said. Israel made no public comment.

Violence against Israelis is rare in Jordan, a tightly policed country that is 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 14 July near the site.

It was not immediately clear whether the incident in Amman on Sunday was linked to the dispute over the Jerusalem compound, but it came after the new security measures were implemented, prompting violence that left eight people dead, with fears of further unrest.

Jordan, which is the official custodian of Muslim holy sites in Jerusalem, has called for the removal of the metal detectors and thousands of Jordanians have protested against the Israeli move.

The UN Security Council will hold closed-door talks Monday about the spiralling violence.