- guardian.co.uk, Monday November 20 2000 01.38 GMT
Foreign ministry officials in Jerusalem said the Israeli deputy consul Yoram Havivian was injured when a man opened fire on his car with an assault rifle yesterday morning. He was treated for cuts and returned to Israel.
Jordan promised to catch his assailant.
It was the first attack on an Israeli envoy in Jordan for a year, although there have been weeks of violent demonstrations by the kingdom's large population of Palestinian refugees. Jordan has come under pressure from other Arab states to cut its ties with Israel, with which it signed a peace treaty in 1994.
Two previously unknown groups, the Jordanian Islamic Resistance Movement for Struggle and the Group of the Holy Warrior Ahmed al-Daqamsah, called after the Jordanian soldier who killed seven Israeli schoolgirls three years ago, claimed responsibility.
The shooting threatened the mood of cautious optimism which has grown in Israeli officials with the reduction in violence since the Palestinian leader, Yasser Arafat, issued a call for restraint.
On the same day Israel plucked the former president Ezer Weizman from retirement for a meeting with the Egyptian president, Hosni Mubarak, who exerts a great deal of influence over Mr Arafat.
Mr Weizman, who shepherded Israel to a peace treaty with Egypt in 1979, spent more than two hours with Mr Mubarak at the resort town of Sharm el-Sheikh. Mr Arafat is to visit Sharm tomorrow.
Mr Weizman said he hoped Mr Mubarak could prevail on Mr Arafat to enforce his ban on opening fire from areas under full Palestinian control, such as Beit Jalla, from where gunmen regularly fire on the Jewish settlement of Gilo, outside Jerusalem.
Israel has unleashed harsh retribution for the gunfire against the residents of Beit Jalla, an easier target than the mobile, lightly armed gunmen.
Yesterday, Palestinian officials outlawed gunfire at demonstrations and funerals and banned schoolchildren from taking part in protests. Shops were ordered to resume normal hours.
The Israeli prime minister, Ehud Barak, responded by telling his weekly cabinet meeting that the army would not retaliate for Saturday's ambush in the Gaza Strip, which killed one soldier and wounded two others.
