Ma'an News 11 Luglio 2008

GAZA – Ma'an – The Israeli army killed a Palestinian on Thursday near the Kissufim crossing southeast of Khan Younis, in the southern Gaza Strip.

Medical sources from Al-Aqsa hospital in central Gaza named the dead man as 18 year-old Salim Jum'a Hamidi from the village of Az-Zawaydeh in the central Gaza Strip.

Dr Mu'awiyah Hassanein, director general of ambulance and emergency services in the Gaza Strip, said that Israeli officials reported that a young man was shot dead by Israeli troops at 7:30 am on Thursday.

Dr Hassanein said that Hamidi had sustained bullet wounds to the stomach and shoulder, and that medical evidence indicated his injury was sustained at approximately 4am. No report of the incident, however, was made until 7am, by which time it was too late to resuscitate the young man.

Hamidi's body was taken to the Al-Aqsa hospital in central Gaza, medical sources said.

The Israeli army confirmed that their forces killed a Palestinian close to the Gaza-Israeli border, near the Kissufim crossing.

Local sources in the Gaza Strip believe he was attempting to cross the border into Israel to look for work, and maintain that he was a civilian.

This marks the first time that a Gazan has died as a result of Israeli gunfire since the truce between Israel and Palestinian resistance factions in the Gaza Strip went into effect 19 June 2008.

Source >  Ma'an News