Hamas Islamists enforced a fragile two-day-old truce on Friday by evacuating Palestinians from a "no-go" border zone after Israel shot dead a Gaza resident there in the first fatality since the cease-fire. The rare move by the group in control of the Gaza Strip followed intervention by Egyptian mediators who urged both sides to take steps to preserve the truce that ended eight days of fierce Israeli-Palestinian fighting on Wednesday.
Israel said its troops opened fire after protesters, some of them throwing stones, tried to breach a Gaza border fence, violating a 300-metre wide security zone where Israel has barred Palestinian access since 2009. Hamas denounced the shooting which killed Anwar Qdeih, 23, and injured 15 other people, as a violation of the truce. Health officials said Qdeih was shot in the head.
Palestinian Foreign Minister Riad Malki, speaking from talks with Italian leaders in Rome, said the incident was "a clear violation of the agreement and should not be repeated". The cease-fire, though, remained intact, with no reports of rockets being fired at Israel, after Egypt contacted both sides, Palestinian sources close to the truce negotiators said. Hamas security officials, coming closer to the Israeli border fence than ever before, escorted Palestinians away from the site, witnesses, including a Reuters photographer, said.