Israeli troops reportedly shot at from Jordan

JERUSALEM (Reuters) - Israeli troops at a border crossing with Jordan came under fire from the kingdom on Tuesday, the Israeli military said, but Jordan quickly denied the report.

"Troops were fired upon from the Jordanian side of the border. It was unclear who the gunmen were," an Israeli spokeswoman said about the incident, which came 18 days into Israel's Gaza offensive. No one was injured, she said.

The troops, who were patrolling near a border crossing with Jordan in southern Israel, returned fire, the spokeswoman said.

Jordan's Petra news agency said: "A military source in the General Command of the Jordanian armed forces denied ... that shots had been fired from the Jordanian side on the Western border, affirming that there is no truth to this information."

On Sunday, Israeli troops in the Golan Heights had come under fire from Syria.

Jordan signed a peace treaty with the Jewish state in 1994, becoming the second Arab state to do so, after Egypt.

Most of Jordan's five million citizens are of Palestinian origin, they or their parents having been expelled or fled to Jordan in the fighting that accompanied the creation of Israel in 1948.

Thousands of Jordanians have taken to the streets to protest Israel's military operation against Hamas militants in the Gaza Strip that has killed at least 925 Palestinians.

Israel's Border Police opened an investigation into the shooting.

(Writing by Ari Rabinovitch)