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Israel shooting puts pressure on fragile truce

Friday 23 November 2012
by Our Foreign Desk
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Israeli troops shot dead a Palestinian man and wounded at least 10 others near Gaza's border fence with Israel today.

Gaza's health ministry said 20-year-old Anwar Qdeih had become the first fatality after a ceasefire took hold Wednesday morning.

However, due to Gazan restraint, the shooting did not appear to pose an immediate threat to the Egypt-brokered ceasefire.

Mr Qdeih was part of a group of people on the Gazan side of Israel's border fence who approached to pick up parts of an Israeli army jeep damaged in the fighting.

Both Hamas and Islamic Jihad said the truce had been broken, but didn't promise retribution, instead saying they would complain to Egypt.

Israel's military has long barred Palestinians from getting close to the fence and soldiers routinely opened fire to enforce a no-go zone extending 400 yards into Gazan territory.

But since the ceasefire, growing numbers of Gazans have entered the zone.

In one incident, several dozen Palestinians, most of them young men, approached the fence, coming close to a group of Israeli soldiers standing on the other side.

At one point, a soldier behind the fence pointed into Gaza and shouted in Hebrew, "Go there, before I shoot you."

The soldier then dropped to one knee, assuming a firing position.

Eventually, a burst of gunfire was heard, but it was not clear whether any of the casualties were from this incident.

Israel's military claimed that roughly 300 Palestinians had approached the security fence at several locations in southern Gaza, tried to damage it and cross into Israel.

Soldiers fired warning shots in the air to distance the Palestinians from the fence, but after they refused to move back, troops fired at their legs, the military claimed.

Meanwhile Israel restricted Palestinian access to occupied Jerusalem's al-Aqsa mosque compound and kept a tight grip on security.

Nothing has so far been heard regarding Israel's pledge to relax controls on Gazan border crossings, one of the key terms of the ceasefire.

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