Israeli forces kill man at barrier, Palestinian ministry says

Israeli forces on Monday shot dead a Palestinian worker as he attempted to climb over a barrier separating Jerusalem from the occupied West Bank, the Palestinian health ministry said.

The Ramallah-based ministry reported that 30-year-old Naser Kaabneh “was killed by Israeli gunfire this morning near the apartheid wall in the town of Bir Nabala, northeast of Jerusalem.”

The Jerusalem Governorate, a Palestinian regional authority for the area, confirmed the details of the incident.

“He was struck by a direct bullet to the heart while trying to reach his workplace inside the city to support his family,” the governorate’s media office said.

Israel has imposed several movement restrictions on the three million Palestinians living in the West Bank, which it has occupied since 1967.

Israeli security officials say a significant number of Palestinians from the West Bank attempt to enter Israel illegally, often by climbing over the barrier.

Israel began building the barrier at the height of the second Palestinian intifada that erupted in 2002, saying it was needed to maintain security amid suicide bombings in Jerusalem and other Israeli cities.

Thousands of Palestinians workers from the West Bank must obtain permits to pass the barrier to Israel or annexed east Jerusalem through military checkpoints.

Israel drastically reduced the number of work permits for Palestinians after Hamas’s unprecedented attack on Israel in October 2023, causing the number of Palestinians crossing the barrier without permits to rise.

Since the start of the Gaza war in October 2023, violence has escalated in the West Bank.

Israeli soldiers or settlers have killed at least 1,087 Palestinians in the West Bank since October 2023, including both militants and civilians, Palestinian health ministry data.

Official Israeli figures show that at least 46 Israelis, both soldiers and civilians, have been killed in Palestinian attacks or during Israeli military operations in the West Bank since the start of the Gaza war.