His trip was seen as a sincere and unusual act in the history of the Arab–Israeli conflict, deeply moving the mourning Israeli public and helping to further improve the relationship between the two countries in light of the 1994 Israel–Jordan peace treaty.

His family expressed pride for his actions and Daqamseh himself showed no signs of remorse, having told Jordanian interrogators in prison that he would have killed all of the girls had his M16 not jammed halfway through.

[3][4] On Thursday, March 13, 1997, 80 seventh- and eighth-grade schoolgirls from the Fuerst (Fürst) School of Beit Shemesh, west of Jerusalem, were on a field trip to the Jordan Valley and the Golan Heights.

[5][3] The assailant killed seven schoolgirls and wounded five others and a teacher before his rifle jammed, and Jordanian soldiers rushed to help the victims after seizing him while yelling "Madman!

On a board a biblical quotation from Psalm 1:3 is written: "And he will be like a tree planted by the rivers of water, which brings forth his fruit in his season; his leaves will not wither."

The assailant was Jordanian Army Corporal Ahmed Daqamseh, who stated that he attacked because he was insulted and angered that the girls were whistling and clapping while he was praying.

"[14] The attack carried a resemblance to an incident where an Israeli Army clerk fired on a group of Palestinians in the Hebron vegetable market on 1 January 1997, wounding seven.

[1] Other media outlets drew parallels with the 1994 Cave of the Patriarchs massacre, where an Israeli Army reserve captain killed 29 and injured 125 in a Hebron mosque.

[17] On March 16, 1997, a few days after the attack, King Hussein of Jordan personally apologized for the incident, traveling to Israel to visit and pay respects to the grieving families of the seven murdered girls during the traditional Jewish mourning ceremony known as shiva.

[2] In July 1997, a five-member Jordanian military tribunal found Daqamseh guilty of killing the Israeli schoolgirls and sentenced him to 20 years with hard labour in prison.

[6] Mjalli, a long-time oppositionist, was appointed to the position as a result of the 2011 Jordanian protests, part of the larger Arab Spring against the region's established regimes.

Israeli Embassy spokeswoman Merav Horsandi said it "is difficult for us to comprehend how there are people who support the release of a cold-blooded murderer of young children.

"[6] To allay Israeli concerns and anger regarding a possible early release, Jordan's foreign ministry issued a statement reassuring that Daqamseh would serve out his life sentence and that Mjalli had just expressed his personal opinion.

[27] "We respect the Jordanian judiciary, and now we can only remember the image of King Hussein consoling the families of the victims," commented Alice Wells, then American ambassador to Jordan, when asked about the embassy's opinion on Daqamseh's release.