IDF Chief of Staff Lt. Gen. Eyal Zamir said Friday that he instructed a halt to the entry of Gaza aid from Jordan until the investigation into the deadly attack a day earlier was completed, as the Allenby Crossing between the West Bank and Jordan was declared shut until further notice.

Aid will continue entering the Gaza Strip via other routes, a military official said, amid the rapidly expanding Israeli offensive in Gaza City, which has left tens of thousands of Palestinians fleeing to the south of the Strip.

According to Israel’s Coordinator of Government Activities in the Territories, since the beginning of the war in Gaza in October 2023, nearly 10,000 trucks of aid, or over 144,000 tons, have been transferred to the Gaza Strip from Jordan using land crossings with Israel and the West Bank. The total represents some 7 percent of all aid deliveries.

Speaking at the scene of the attack on Friday, Zamir vowed to “draw lessons” from the “difficult incident” in which two soldiers were shot and killed by a Jordanian who had been driving a Gaza-bound humanitarian aid truck.

“This is a serious and difficult incident. We will thoroughly investigate it and draw lessons from it,” Zamir said during a visit to the border alongside senior officers, adding: “We must remember that the strategic-security cooperation with Jordan contributes greatly to the IDF and must be preserved.”

“In recent months, we have established a dedicated division on the eastern border. We are strengthening and will continue to strengthen all components of defense on this border,” he said, referring to the recently formed 96th “Gilad” Division, which is tasked with the Jordan border.

Zamir was joined by COGAT chief Maj. Gen. Ghassan Alian, Planning Directorate chief, Vice Adm. Eyal Harel, Central Command chief, Maj. Gen. Avi Bluth and officials from the Israel Airports Authority (IAA) — responsible for the border crossing. Zamir later met with 96th Division chief Brig. Gen. Oren Simcha and other officers at a military post in the area, the IDF added.

Meanwhile, the IAA declared on Friday that the Allenby Crossing — the West Bank’s sole crossing with Jordan — closed until further notice.

The northern Jordan River Crossing has also been closed until further notice. The Israel-Jordan Rabin Crossing near Eilat was only open to workers, while the Taba Crossing with Egypt was operating normally, according to the IAA statement.

Simultaneously, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu was reportedly seeking to tighten security at the border crossing, blaming Jordan for the deadly shooting and stabbing attack, after it was revealed that the perpetrator was a Jordanian who had been driving a Gaza-bound humanitarian aid truck.

During a security cabinet meeting Thursday night, the premier told ministers that he wants new security protocols to be introduced for aid trucks arriving from Jordan, the Kan public broadcaster reported.

“I demand that the drivers pass through metal detectors from now on, and that the trucks be thoroughly inspected,” Netanyahu was quoted as saying. “It was Jordan’s responsibility to prevent the attack, and it didn’t.”

The perpetrator of Thursday’s attack arrived at the crossing from the Jordanian side, upon which he opened fire at soldiers using a handgun.

He then got out of the truck and, after his gun apparently jammed, stabbed the two soldiers repeatedly until security guards at the crossing opened fire at him, killing him on the spot.

The slain soldiers were named as: Lt. Col. (res.) Yitzhak Harosh, 68, a reservist in the Civil Administration from Jerusalem, and Sgt. Oran Hershko, 20, a liaison officer with foreign forces in the IDF’s Tevel international cooperation unit, from Tel Mond.

Both victims were responsible for coordinating the entry of Gaza aid via Jordan.

The attack occurred before the truck could be inspected, a preliminary military investigation found.

In a statement later Thursday evening, the Jordanian foreign ministry announced that the country’s security services had launched an investigation into “the shooting incident” on the Israeli side of the border crossing.

The foreign ministry said Jordan “condemned and rejected” the attack “as a violation of international law, Jordan’s interests and its ability to deliver humanitarian aid to the Gaza Strip.”

The ministry’s statement named the perpetrator as Abd al-Mutalib al-Qaisi, a 57-year-old who had started working as a truck driver distributing aid to Gaza just three months ago.

This was not the first instance in which Jordanian nationals have carried out attacks at Allenby Crossing.

In September 2024, three Israeli men, Yohanan Shchori, Yuri Birnbaum and Adrian Marcelo Podzamczer, were killed in a terrorist shooting at the Allenby Crossing, carried out by a Jordanian truck driver.

The following month, in October 2024, two Israelis were wounded in a shooting near the Dead Sea carried out by terror operatives who had infiltrated from Jordan.

Separately on Friday, authorities announced that police officers and IDF troops located several assault rifles and gun parts near the Allenby Crossing.

In a joint statement, the Israel Police and military said that during scans south of the crossing shortly after the attack, forces found a bag with several guns and parts in it, which were intended to be smuggled into Israel via the West Bank.

Weapon smuggling attempts over the Jordan border are frequent.

Nurit Yohanan contributed to this report.