A gunman from Jordan wounded five tourists at a usually quiet border crossing between Israel and Jordan on Wednesday before being shot dead, officials said.
Security sources said the attacker was killed almost instantly after opening fire at the crossing near the southern Israeli resort of Eilat. Hospital officials said the wounded were all tourists from South America. One woman was critically hurt.
A senior border official said the gunman appeared to have hidden among Jordanian trucks waiting to unload cattle and then opened fire on the border post when the tourists were heading through.
"The gunman apparently hid among the trucks and opened fire 20 metres (yards) from the entrance to the Israeli passport check," said Menachem Zelichovsky of Israel's airport authority, responsible for the border crossing.
"They (the tourists) were in the entrance to the Israeli area and two of the wounded even managed to run into the building."
Zelichovsky said guards had killed the gunman soon after he opened fire. Officials originally reported more than one attacker involved but later said it was the work of a lone gunman.
The border area between Jordan and southern Israel has hardly been touched by more than three years of violence in a Palestinian uprising.
The border crossing is regularly used by tourists heading between the Israeli seaside resort of Eilat and Jordan's ancient rock city of Petra.
There was no immediate claim of responsibility for the attack, but Palestinian militants have occasionally launched raids across the Jordanian border into Israel.