Deadly church attack shocks Jordan's deep-rooted Christian community

Jordan’s small Christian community was reeling on Saturday, a day after the killing of eight of its members in what authorities called a terrorist attack on a church.

Friday’s attack on St George's Orthodox church in the village of Hamoud was the largest attack against the country’s Christians since the mid 1950s.

Overnight, Jordanian authorities increased the death toll from seven to eight and said none of the three assailants had not yet been captured. Hamoud is about 80km south of Amman.

The victims were all men who mostly belonged to the Halasah family, a prominent Christian family in Jordan. The Halasah's ancestral land is situated in Hamoud. Three doctors were among those killed.

“Jordan has not seen such an attack. It appears to have been designed to make the Christians leave,” said a prominent member of the Halasah clan, who is also a doctor.

Jordan is dependent on US aid and has a defence pact with Washington. The kingdom is widely regarded as a bastion of stability in the Middle East. But it faces domestic challenges as its economy has been stagnant for 15 years and the official unemployment rate is 16 per cent.

The attack occurred as the authorities were promoting a site near the Dead Sea where Christians believe Jesus was baptised in an effort to revive tourism. The kingdom’s Christian population numbers 250,000 out of a population of 11 million. Orthodox Christians are the largest denomination.

The attack struck at the core of Jordan’s Christian minority, the doctor said, describing the Halasahs as "the most prominent" of the Christian families, and Hamoud as their "bastion”.

The church responded to the attack by affirming loyalty to the state. Christophoros of Kyriakoupolis, the Archbishop of Jerusalem, described it as an “ugly terrorist act” that "will not undermine national unity” and allegiance to King Abdullah II.

The archbishop, who also presides over the church in Jordan, said that the "Christians are part of the history of this country … and will be, with the grace God, part of its future”.

There was no claim of responsibility for the attack, nor did the authorities name a culprit. The country has maintained a complex relationship with Islamist groups. Last year, the government banned the Muslim Brotherhood. However, the authorities kept the Islamic Action Front, a group linked to the Brotherhood, which constitutes the largest bloc in parliament. This year, the Islamic Action Front rebranded itself as the Umma Party.

Criticism by Jordanians and other Arabs started to appear on social media about views by some Islamists suggesting that Jordan was doing the Christians a favour by letting them stay in the kingdom.

One of those who was criticised was MP Huda Al Otoum, from the Umma Party. She warned this month that Jordan’s “acceptance” of the Christians could be used to “accept the Jews”. Social media users criticised her for sowing sectarian tension. Many Jordanians took to social media after Friday's attack in support of Christians, pointing out that Christianity is intertwined with the history of the country.

Step News Agency, an anti-Brotherhood Youtube channel describing itself as a specialising in Arab affairs, published an old clip of a TV interview with Hamza Mansour, a former head of the Islamic Action Front, refusing to condemn ISIS outright.

The Umma Party said in a statement that the attack in Hamoud "constitutes a dangerous crime and a terrorist action that targets "our nation and its cohesion."

When the authorities banned the Brotherhood in 2025, they accused the group of complicity in a weapons manufacturing scheme aimed at creating instability. The kingdom has been ruled by the Hashemite monarchy since it was founded as a British protectorate in 1921. All significant powers are with King Abdullah, who has ruled since 1999.