A Palestinian teenager has died after being shot by Israeli forces last month during protests and clashes along the Gaza border, the health ministry in the enclave said.
Saheeb Abu Kashef, 16, died late Saturday after being shot on August 3 east of Khan Yunis in the southern Gaza Strip, according to the ministry.
An Israeli military spokesman has meanwhile raised questions over the death of a 12-year-old Palestinian in the Gaza Strip during protests and clashes on Friday.
The health ministry said on Friday that Shadi Abdel Aal was killed by Israeli fire east of Jabalia in the northern Gaza Strip.
On Saturday, a friend who was with him at the time said they were throwing stones at the border fence when Abdel Aal was hit by a tear gas grenade fired by Israeli soldiers and collapsed instantly.
Israeli military spokesman Avichay Adraee said on Twitter that, according to “indications” and unnamed “witnesses,” the boy was killed after being hit by stones that had been thrown.
The army did not respond to a request for further details.
Ashraf al-Qudra, spokesman for the Gaza health ministry, said yesterday that the ministry stood by its statement that the boy was killed by Israeli fire and that an autopsy would confirm further details.
At least 179 Palestinians in Gaza have been killed since protests and clashes erupted along the border on March 30.
One Israeli soldier has been killed since then.
Israel accuses Hamas, the movement that runs the Gaza Strip, of seeking to use the protests to carry out attacks or infiltrations.
It says its actions are necessary to defend the border.
Palestinians and rights groups say protesters have been shot while posing little threat.Israel and Hamas have fought three wars since 2008.
Meanwhile, a Palestinian fatally stabbed an Israeli-American man near the entrance to a mall in the occupied West Bank yesterday before being shot and wounded at the end of a brief foot chase, officials said.
The man killed, Ari Fuld, was a right-wing activist who has appeared regularly on television, but a police spokesman said there was no indication he was targeted for that reason.
Fuld, 45, was a father of four who lived in the Israeli settlement of Efrat, near the mall where he was stabbed.
The Palestinian attacker was 17-year-old Khalil Jabareen, from the village of Yatta in the southern West Bank, according to Palestinian security sources.
Israeli police spokesman Micky Rosenfeld said Jabareen was moderately wounded.
The incident took place at the Gush Etzion Junction south of Jerusalem and Bethlehem, according to Israel’s military, which provided the details of the stabbing.
Surveillance footage shared on news sites and social media showed the assailant approaching an older man near the mall entrance and stabbing him several times.
He is then pursued by civilians and shot nearby.
There is regular friction between Israelis and Palestinians at the junction, which lies near a major Israeli settlement bloc and has been the site of numerous lone-wolf Palestinian attacks.

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