GAZA CITY, PALESTINIAN TERRITORIES // Israeli troops shot dead a Palestinian near the border in northern Gaza on Sunday in the first deadly shooting since an August truce ended a 50-day war.
The Palestinian health ministry identified the victim as Fadel Mohammed Halawa, 32, and said he was shot by soldiers east of Jabalya refugee camp.
Emergency services spokesman Ashraf Al Qudra said who was shot in the back while farming land near the border fence.
The Israeli army said two Palestinians had approached the fence and ignored calls to halt, prompting troops to fire warning shots in the air.
“Once they didn’t comply, they fired towards their lower extremities. There was one hit,” an army spokeswoman said.
She did not confirm the man’s death and had no comment on reports he was shot in back.
It was the first time a Palestinian from Gaza had been killed by Israeli fire since a seven-week war between Israel and Hamas militants ended with an Egyptian-brokered ceasefire on August 26.
Following the initial truce agreement, the sides were supposed to have resumed talks on some of the thornier outstanding issues within a month, but the deadline has been repeatedly delayed.
Meanwhile on Sunday, Israeli prosecutors charged a policeman in the fatal shooting of a teenage Palestinian protester, accusing him of deliberately switching his rubber bullets with the live round that killed the youth.
The decision to level a charge of manslaughter rather than murder drew criticism from the boy’s father, who said the evidence showed the killing was pre-meditated.
Nadeem Nawara, 17, was shot during a demonstration in May at which Palestinians hurled stones at Israeli forces in the occupied West Bank. A second teenage protester was killed there but Israel has made no arrest in that case, citing lack of evidence as an autopsy was not carried out.
CCTV footage suggested neither youth posed any immediate threat to the troops stationed about 64 metres away. Their deaths stoked Palestinian fury at Israel that has simmered since US-sponsored peace negotiations collapsed in April.
Manslaughter, a charge associated with unintentional killings, carries a maximum 20-year prison term in Israel though judges can hand down lighter sentences. Murder usually carries a life term.
“All indications show the killing was deliberate and pre-mediated. It was not random fire,” Nuwara’s father, Siam said. “A manslaughter charge is unacceptable. What sentence might he get if the charge is manslaughter?”
The accused, a member of the paramilitary border police named as Ben Deri, was arrested earlier this month. He has denied the charge against him.
An indictment filed at Jerusalem district court said the policeman had slipped a live bullet into his ammunition clip, which was meant to hold only non-lethal blank rounds with which to propel rubber bullets mounted separately on the rifle muzzle.
“The defendant used the blanks magazine so that his live fire, as opposed to rubber-bullet fire, would not be observed,” the indictment said, adding that he had targeted Nuwara’s torso “with the intent of causing him grave injury, and while anticipating the possibility that he would cause his death”.
The policeman had previously denied firing live ammunition, saying he only used rubber bullets in the incident outside Israel’s Ofer Prison, near the Palestinian town of Beitunia.
* Agence France-Presse and Reuters
