The 1997 Island of Peace Massacre

Case-status note: “Solved / adjudicated” refers to Ahmad Daqamseh's military-court conviction and completed prison term. Sources differ in shorthand descriptions of the number wounded; this file preserves that variance instead of forcing a single figure.

What happened at the Island of Peace?

A school group from Beit Shemesh was visiting the scenic Jordan–Israel border site known as the Island of Peace when Daqamseh, a Jordanian soldier posted there, opened fire. Seven schoolgirls were killed. Later reporting by the Associated Press described seven girls wounded; other accounts distinguish five wounded pupils and one teacher. The consistent core record is the murder of seven children during a class trip.

The site carried special symbolic weight. It was associated with the 1994 peace arrangements between Jordan and Israel, and the attack occurred only three years after the two countries signed their treaty.

The victims and survivors

The seven children were eighth-grade pupils from Beit Shemesh. Contemporary and later reporting describes them as schoolgirls on an educational visit, not participants in hostilities. The archive avoids reproducing graphic detail and centers the event's human fact: a routine class trip became a mass killing.

Associated Press reporting in 2017 identified Sivan Fathi, aged 13, through her father Yisrael Fatihi's account. He recalled being told that Daqamseh's release was imminent and spoke of King Hussein's condolence visit to the family. The surviving pupils and teacher carried injuries that are reported differently across sources, which is why the dossier does not present a falsely exact total beyond the seven deaths.

Immediate arrest and state response

Daqamseh was taken into custody after the shooting. Jordanian authorities prosecuted him before a military court. The case was therefore not an unidentified-perpetrator investigation: the person who fired was arrested, tried and convicted.

King Hussein publicly condemned the attack. He traveled to Israel and visited the bereaved families. AP's later account records that he knelt beside mourners sitting on the floor, an act that the family of Sivan Fathi said they appreciated. Jordan also paid compensation, according to Al Jazeera's review of the case.

Military trial and sentence

The military court found Daqamseh mentally unstable and did not impose a death sentence. It sentenced him to life imprisonment. Sources published at the end of his confinement explain that this term was not open-ended in the relevant Jordanian system and that he could be released after 20 years.

The precise psychiatric language should not be stretched into a universal medical conclusion. The legally relevant fact is narrower: the court's mental-state finding affected punishment but did not prevent conviction for killing the seven schoolgirls.

Motive claims and evidentiary limits

Daqamseh later said that he fired after the pupils mocked him while he was praying. That is his account, not an independently established motive. Other political and ideological explanations circulated publicly. None should be stated as a proven inner motive without a judgment or evidence capable of resolving the conflict.

For that reason, this dossier separates the observable event and adjudicated responsibility from later statements by the convicted man, supporters, relatives or political figures.

Release after 20 years

Jordan released Daqamseh before dawn on March 12, 2017, after he completed 20 years in prison. The Public Security Directorate confirmed the release. News footage and reports described supporters welcoming him in his home village; those demonstrations do not alter the court record or the status of the victims.

His release was completion of the term as applied by Jordan, not an acquittal, pardon or reversal of the murder conviction.

Current status

The criminal case is adjudicated: Daqamseh was convicted, imprisoned and released after completing the applicable 20-year term. No source reviewed for this dossier indicates that the conviction was overturned.

The historical record continues to generate political debate, especially about public praise for the gunman. Editorially, that debate remains separate from the established facts of the killings, the court's judgment and the sentence served.

Questions the record does not fully settle

• What exact diagnostic language and evidentiary basis underlay the military court's mental-state finding?
• Why do later reports describe the wounded total differently?
• Which motive claims, beyond Daqamseh's own statements, were actually tested at trial?

Those gaps do not make the perpetrator or judicial outcome uncertain. They define the limits of what can responsibly be said about motive, injury totals and medical evidence.

Sources

• Associated Press via Voice of America — release after 20 yearsPublished March 12, 2017 · attack, victims, sentence, release and King Hussein's family visits.
• Al Jazeera / news agencies — Ahmad Daqamseh freedPublished March 12, 2017 · military-court outcome, release, stated motive and compensation.
• The New York Times — Jordanian soldier kills seven Israeli schoolgirlsPublished March 14, 1997 · contemporary account of the attack.