A Palestinian man was shot and killed by Israeli forces on Sunday at a concrete barrier separating the occupied West Bank from Jerusalem, the Palestinian Health Ministry said.
The ministry identified him as 26-year-old Imad Haroun Ishtayeh from Salem town, east of Nablus. It said Israeli forces shot him in a thigh in al-Ram town, and he was pronounced dead at the Palestinian Medical Complex in Ramallah.
Footage circulating online showed people carrying his body and climbing down a ladder that had been placed against the wire-topped barrier, while traffic continued to roll by and a horn blared.
Israeli police didn’t immediately respond about the shooting.
Ishtayeh was attempting to cross from the West Bank to Israel. Many people have been shot trying to cross the barrier, including a 44-year-old father who was killed earlier this month.
Ishtayeh previously ran a poultry slaughterhouse in his home village of Salem, financially supporting his ill father. But business deteriorated as an economic crisis hit the West Bank and he decided to cross into Israel in search of a job, relative Nasser Ishtayeh told The Associated Press.
On his first attempt on Saturday, Israeli security was tight, Nasser said. After spending the night with other Palestinians hoping to cross into Israel, he tried again on Sunday morning and was shot.
“He was directly shot with live bullets and died at the hospital,” Nasser said.
An increasing number of Palestinians from the West Bank have tried to enter Israel illegally to work in recent years. Tens of thousands of Palestinians had held Israeli work permits, but access was sharply restricted after the attack by Hamas-led militants on southern Israel on Oct. 7, 2023, sparked the war in Gaza.
Since then, unemployment in the West Bank has surged amid an economic slowdown. And around 50 workers have been killed by Israeli fire, with over 38,000 arrested though many were later released, the Palestinian official WAFA news agency reported Sunday, citing the General Federation of Palestinian Trade Unions.
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This version corrects the spelling of Salem.
