"Israeli" troops kill unarmed Palestinian at Gaza border

Source: AFP, 11-07-2008

GAZA CITY: 'Israeli' troops shot dead an unarmed Palestinian on the border in the Gaza Strip Thursday, the first fatality of a three-week-old truce, prompting retaliatory rocket fire. Troops "identified a suspicious person crossing the fence from Gaza into 'Israel' near Kissufim. The force called on him to stop and fired warning shots but he did not stop and the soldiers fired at him and killed him," an army spokesman claimed.

"When they approached his body they saw he was unarmed," he said, alleging that there had been several attempts by Palestinian militants to plant bombs in the border area.

The Al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigades, an offshoot of Palestinian president Mahmoud Abbas' Fatah faction, claimed that the man, Salim al-Hamedi, was one of its members.

"We will respond to this crime soon," it said.

Several hours later, two homemade rockets were fired on southern 'Israel' from Gaza, without any initial report of casualties, the army said.

The Brigades issued a statement claiming responsibility for "firing two rockets on the settlement of Sderot." The 'Israeli' "occupation should know that we will continue to respond to Zionist violations [of the treaty], the latest of which was the cold-blooded killing of Salim al-Hamedi," it said.

Hamedi's death was the first fatality since a truce in and around Hamas-ruled Gaza went into effect on June 19.

Hamas has insisted it is respecting the Egyptian-mediated truce and doing its best to get other factions in the impoverished Palestinian territory to do the same.

'Israel' sealed Gaza's borders on several occasions in response to the attacks, preventing delivery of the already limited quantities of goods allowed into the territory where a majority of the 1.5 million population relies on foreign aid.

Hamas has argued that this in itself was a violation of the truce deal, which entailed a gradual easing of the embargo imposed after the Islamists seized power in Gaza.

Before Thursday's shooting, Palestinian and UN officials also accused 'Israeli' troops of firing into the Gaza Strip on several occasions since the truce came into effect, wounding at least two people. The 'Israeli' Army rejected the claims, saying its troops fired only warning shots.