Israeli troops shot dead a Palestinian man and wounded 19 people as crowds surged toward Gaza’s border fence with Israel on Friday, a health official said, the first violence since a truce between Israel and Gaza’s Hamas rulers took hold a day before.
The shooting did not appear to pose an immediate threat to the Egypt-brokered cease-fire, which called for an end to Gaza rocket fire on Israel and Israeli airstrikes on Gaza. The truce came after eight days of cross-border fighting, the bloodiest between Israel and Hamas in four years.
It appeared unlikely Hamas would retaliate for the Friday’s shooting because that could jeopardise the militant group’s potential gains from the cease-fire deal, such as an easing of restrictions on movement in and out of the Palestinian territory.
Hamas officials were not immediately available for comment. Nafez Azzam, a spokesman for Gaza’s Islamic Jihad, said the shooting was a violation of the truce and that Egypt was informed.
On Friday, hundreds of Palestinians approached Israel’s border fence in several locations in southern Gaza. Several dozen Palestinians, most of them young men, approached the fence, coming close to a group of Israeli soldiers standing on the other side. Some briefly talked to the soldiers, while others taunted them. At one point, a soldier shouted, “Go there, before I shoot you,” and pointed away from the fence, toward Gaza.
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