GAZA (Reuters) – Israeli forces shot and killed a Palestinian man along the Gaza-Israel border on Tuesday, Palestinian health officials said, the first such fatality in what have become almost daily confrontations along the frontier, after months of relative calm.
The Israeli military did not immediately comment. Over the past few weeks it has said its soldiers had been using riot dispersal means against Palestinians throwing explosives at the border fence.
Health officials said the 25-year-old, Youssef Radwan, was shot in the neck and died in hospital and that 11 more people were wounded.
Last week, five Palestinians were killed at the border by an explosive device detonated accidentally by demonstrators who were planning to use it against Israeli forces.
Hamas, the Islamist armed group which rules Gaza, has been supportive of the border rallies. Organizers on Tuesday said they were held in protests of Jewish visits to the flashpoint Al-Aqsa Mosque compound in Jerusalem.
Others were called in support of Palestinian prisoners jailed in Israel and an Israeli blockade on the narrow coastal territory, which is home to around 2.3 million Palestinians whose economy is buckling under the restrictions.
Israel says its blockade is necessary to stop arms reaching Hamas, with which it has fought several wars since the group seized control of Gaza in 2007, two years after Israel withdrew its settlers and troops from the small coastal enclave.
(Reporting by Nidal al-Mughrabi; additional reporting by Maayan Lubell in Jerusalem, editing by Timothy Gardner)
