Israeli border guards have shot dead a 20-year-old Palestinian participating in a riot against no-go areas along Gaza's border with Israel, Palestinian Health Ministry emergencies chief Muavia Hasanen has said.
Witnesses said several dozen protesters entered a no-go area and began throwing stones at Israeli soldiers.
The Israeli army's press service said border guards fired warning shots before they were forced to open fire at protesters.
Israeli news network Arutz Sheva said a single bullet was fired by Israeli troops. A video footage shot by the rioters show that the wounded Palestinian identified as Ahmed Dib was bleeding from the lower part of his body as he was carried away by his friends, the network said.
A report from Gaza's Shifa Hospital quoted by Arutz Sheva confirmed that the rioter had died of his injury.
Protests against no-go areas, which experts say eat up some 20% of Gaza's arable land, are frequent in the enclave.
Several people, including a Maltese human rights activist, have been shot and wounded by Israeli troops during earlier protests.
Hasanen also said that at least four Palestinians died and ten were injured on Wednesday as a result of an explosion in a smuggling tunnel linking Gaza with Egypt.
The Gaza Strip has been subject to an almost continuous Israeli blockade since the radical Islamic group Hamas took control of the enclave in the summer of 2007, ousting President Mahmoud Abbas's Fatah movement in a bloody five-day war.
Since the start of the blockade, most of Gaza's consumer goods have been smuggled through tunnels from Egypt. According to local medical officials, the underground business has claimed the lives of about 150 Palestinians. Cave-ins, gas used by Egyptian border guards, and Israeli airstrikes are the common causes of death.
Egypt has now nearly finished constructing an underground steel wall on its border with Gaza to stop the smugglers.
GAZA, April 29 (RIA Novosti)
