As Iranian missile barrages target Israel, neighboring Jordan is increasingly feeling the impact. In recent days, air raid sirens have repeatedly sounded across Jordan, often in tandem with alerts in Israel. While Israeli residents take shelter, Jordanians have few protected areas to turn to.
On Thursday night, Jordan’s General Intelligence Directorate issued a statement: “The warning period has ended, we hope everyone is safe. Please follow the instructions.” The agency had earlier urged residents to stay indoors, avoid windows and open areas and follow safety guidelines during the alerts.
Iranian drones above Jordan
Unlike in Israel, Jordanians often remain in place during missile alerts due to the lack of bomb shelters. On Thursday, a drone crashed in the Abu Nseir neighborhood of Amman, damaging vehicles and a bus stop. No injuries were reported. Throughout the day, authorities confirmed several other unidentified objects had fallen in different parts of the country.
In another incident, a drone crashed near the town of Azraq in western Jordan, wounding two people—including a 12-year-old girl—and damaging three homes and two vehicles. Elsewhere, security officials reported a “suspicious object” had landed on the roof of a school in the Mafraq district. No students were present and no injuries were reported.
Jordanian social media circulated footage of additional drone impacts in the city of Sidon in the Irbid district and debris falling in Jerash in the country’s northwest.
A senior Jordanian source told Ynet that public opinion in the Arab world is deeply divided over the Iran-Israel conflict. “There are three main camps,” the official said. “Some support Iran and view its strikes on Israel as a moral victory for the resistance and a rejection of normalization. They welcome the sirens in Israel and see the attacks as justified retaliation for the war in Gaza.”
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Others, especially critics of Tehran, view Iran as a greater threat than Israel. They believe its regional involvement is aimed not at aiding Palestinians but at expanding Iranian political and military influence at the expense of Arab states.
Then there are the frustrated neutrals, who see the conflict as a power struggle between two regional heavyweights with competing interests. “These people believe Arab civilians are paying the price without gaining anything,” the source said.
According to the official, many Jordanians have taken to watching Iranian missiles streak across the sky rather than seeking shelter. “There’s a mood swing between hope and despair, between anger and a yearning for real solutions,” he added.
Prof. Ronen Yitzhak, head of Middle Eastern Studies at Western Galilee College and a senior researcher at the Dayan Center at Tel Aviv University, said what’s most surprising in Jordan right now is the lack of protests against Israel’s military actions in Iran.
“Jordan outlawed the Muslim Brotherhood but the real reason for the quiet is that public opinion is strongly hostile to Iran,” Yitzhak explained. “In past public opinion surveys, Jordanians ranked Iran as a greater threat to their national security than Israel. As much as they dislike Israel, they dislike Iran even more.”
This, he said, helps explain the public’s support for the Jordanian government’s recent actions, including participating in regional air defense efforts and repeatedly declaring that Jordan “will not become a battleground.”