Jordan says it beefs up army presence along borders with Israel

Source: Reuters

Jordan says it beefs up army presence along borders with Israel

By Suleiman Al-Khalidi
November 21, 2023 4:01 PM EST Updated an hour ago

AMMAN, Nov 21 (Reuters) - Jordan said on Tuesday the army had beefed up its presence along its borders with Israel and warned that any Israeli attempt to forcibly push Palestinians across the Jordan River would represent a breach of its peace accord with its neighbour.

Prime Minister Bisher Khasawneh said his country would resort to "all the means in its power" to prevent Israel from implementing any transfer policy to expel Palestinians en masse from the West Bank.

The Israel-Gaza conflict has stirred long-standing fears in Jordan, home to a large population of Palestinian refugees and their descendants. Right-wing, ultra-nationalist hardliners now in the Israeli government have long espoused a Jordan-is-Palestine solution to the Israeli-Palestinian issue.

Israel has launched a massive bombardment of the Gaza Strip since the deadly Oct. 7 rampage by the Islamist group Hamas into southern Israel, that has left some 1.7 million of Gaza's 2.3 million people internally displaced

"Any displacements or creating the conditions that would lead to it, Jordan will consider it a declaration of war and constitutes a material breach of the peace treaty," state media quoted Khasawneh as saying, referring to the 1994 peace treaty with Israel.

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Read more: https://www.reuters.com/world/middle-east/jordan-says-it-beefs-up-army-presence-along-borders-with-israel-2023-11-21/

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