Embassy personnel in Amman to return after weekend

Announcement follows staff evacuation after hundred of demonstrators in Jordanian capital call on gov't to scrap peace treaty with Israel.

By HERB KEINON
Jordan embassy protest 311 (photo credit: Reuters)
Jordan embassy protest 311
(photo credit: Reuters)
Israel’s diplomats will return to Amman at the end of the weekend as usual, a Foreign Ministry official said on Thursday, a day after the personnel there came home a day earlier than scheduled because of concern over a demonstration against the embassy that was planned on Facebook.
All diplomatic personnel at the embassy, with the exception of the No. 2 official there, left Amman on Wednesday. Generally, because of overall security concerns and the short distance between the countries, the staff – whose families are not with them during the week – return to Israel each Thursday for the weekend.
RELATED:Egypt's press blames Israeli for Eilat terror attackIsrael evacuates embassy in Jordan ahead of protests
The decision on Wednesday to order an early departure of embassy personnel was taken five days after the 13-hour rampage at the embassy in Cairo, during which six Israeli security guards locked themselves behind a steel door as mobs ransacked the mission.
Egyptian commandos rescued them from the Cairo embassy, as protesters broke into archives and threw documents from the building’s windows into the street below where demonstrators were celebrating.
The plan for the protest in Amman comes amid increasing voices in Jordan calling for an end to the normalization of ties with Israel.
Several hundred protesters outside of the embassy in Amman called on Thursday for Jordan to cancel the peace treaty with Israel, Israel Radio reported.
Israeli officials have said recently that the Jordanian government has not done enough to quell those voices, and that this has led to a significant decrease in contact and trade between the two countries.
Jerusalem Post staff contributed to this report.