Gaza crowds surge at Israel border fence, 1 dead
BY Associated Press
Saturday, November 24, 2012
11/24/12 at 6:13 AM
Israeli troops fired on Gazans surging toward Israel's border fence Friday, killing one person but leaving intact the fragile two-day-old cease-fire between Hamas and the Jewish state.
The truce, which calls for an end to Gaza rocket fire on Israel and Israeli airstrikes on Gaza, came after eight days of cross-border fighting, the bloodiest between Israel and Hamas in four years.
In a letter to the U.N. Security Council, the Palestinian U.N. observer Riyad Mansour called the situation in Gaza "extremely fragile" and said Israel's cease-fire violations and other illegal actions risk undermining the calm that was just restored.
Hundreds of Palestinians approached the border fence Friday in several locations in southern Gaza, testing expectations Israel would no longer enforce a 300-yard-wide no-go zone on the Palestinian side of the fence that was meant to prevent infiltrations into Israel. In the past, Israeli soldiers routinely opened fire on those who crossed into the zone.
Gaza health official Ashraf al-Kidra said a 20-year-old man was killed and 19 people were wounded by Israeli fire near the border.
Mansour, the Palestinian U.N. observer, said Israeli forces fatally shot Anwar Abdulhadi Qudaih in the head and injured at least 19 other Palestinian civilians in a border area east of Khan Younis.
During the incidents, Hamas security tried to defuse the situation and keep the crowds away from the fence.
Moussa Abu Marzouk, a top Hamas official at the ongoing negotiations in Cairo, told The Associated Press that the violence would have no effect on the ceasefire.
Original Print Headline: 1 dead in shooting at Israel's border
