At least seven people were killed and around ten others wounded on Friday when two unidentified gunmen opened fire during a funeral service at a church in the village of Hamoud, in Jordan’s southern Karak province, according to Jordanian state media.
The attack unfolded on Friday afternoon as between 150 and 200 mourners gathered inside and around the church for the funeral of a local woman. Witnesses told the state-run broadcaster Al-Mamlaka that a vehicle arrived carrying two armed men, who opened fire on the crowd and kept shooting for about five minutes before fleeing the scene. One attacker was seen carrying an AK-47 Kalashnikov rifle, a witness said. Most of the victims were reported to be between 50 and 70 years old.
Jordan’s Public Security Directorate confirmed that “unidentified gunmen opened fire inside a church in Karak Governorate, resulting in several deaths and injuries,” adding: “Efforts are underway to locate the suspects.” Security forces launched a manhunt across the governorate, and footage broadcast by Al-Mamlaka showed security personnel deployed around the church.
The directorate stopped short of confirming the casualty figures circulating on state television. The toll of seven dead and around ten wounded — some critically — comes from a security source quoted by Al-Mamlaka, and has not yet been confirmed in an official statement. The directorate warned the public against spreading unverified information about the incident, saying those who do could face legal action.
Government spokesperson Mohammad Al-Momani said security agencies were responding on the ground and that verified information would be shared once details were established. A funeral for a woman was underway at Hamoud Church when the shooting began, and the gunmen fired first at people outside the church before turning their fire toward the building’s entrance, according to witness accounts cited by Jordanian outlets.
A rare attack in one of the region’s most stable states
Hamoud is a predominantly Christian village north of the city of Karak, roughly 100 kilometres south of the capital, Amman. Jordan is a Muslim-majority kingdom ruled by the Hashemite monarchy, and its small Christian communities — long established, particularly in the Karak region — make up only a few percent of the population.
Mass shootings of this kind are extraordinarily rare in Jordan, which markets itself as an island of stability in a volatile region. The last major gun attack in Karak province came in December 2016, when militants attacked security forces and besieged the historic Karak Castle, leaving 14 people dead — including the four gunmen, who were killed in the standoff. No motive has been established in Friday’s attack, and no group has claimed responsibility.
Why it matters
Gunmen choosing a funeral inside a church — in a country where Christian communities have lived for centuries and worship openly — makes this more than a Jordanian security story. It is a test of one of the Middle East’s last functioning models of religious coexistence, and it lands on the same day as another deadly shooting in the region: a gun attack near Hebron that wounded five Israeli soldiers and prompted Israel to order a full lockdown of the West Bank. Whether or not the two incidents are connected — and nothing so far suggests they are — the timing will put Jordan’s security posture under intense scrutiny from allies who rely on Amman as a stabilizing force, including the United States.
What happens next is an investigation, not speculation. Security forces are hunting two men whose identities and motives remain unknown, the Public Security Directorate has promised a full official statement, and the toll itself is still provisional. Until then, the facts stand where the mourners left them: a funeral interrupted by five minutes of gunfire in a village church.
