JERUSALEM: A 17-year-old Palestinian died on Monday, two months after he was wounded in the neck by Israeli gunfire during clashes near the city of Ramallah in the occupied West Bank, Palestinian health authorities said.
The shooting occurred during one of numerous clashes between Palestinian protesters and Israeli forces during the 11-day war in May between Israel and Hamas, the fourth conflict since the militant group seized control of the Gaza Strip in 2007.
A statement from Palestinian health authorities said Youssef Nawaf died after a May 14 gunshot wound in the neck damaged his spinal cord, leaving him in critical condition.
At least 26 Palestinians were killed in the West Bank during the May fighting, according to the UN.
At least 254 people were killed in Gaza, including 67 children and 39 women, while 12 civilians, including two children and one soldier, were killed in Israel.
Israel captured the West Bank in the 1967 war.
The Palestinians seek the area as the heartland of a future independent state.
On Friday, another Palestinian youth — Mohammed Tamimi, 17 — was shot and killed by Israeli troops during clashes in Nebi Saleh.
The village has been the scene of numerous demonstrations over the years against the expansion of a nearby Israeli settlement on what the Palestinians say is their land.
Israel hit Gaza with airstrikes on Sunday after incendiary balloons launched from the Palestinian enclave caused fires in the Jewish state, with no reported injuries on either side.
The Israeli strikes targeted an open area in northern Gaza and a militant training site belonging to the strip’s Hamas Islamist rulers in southern Khan Younis, said Palestinian security sources.
The strikes came after Israel cut by half the fishing zone off the blockaded coastal territory, a common response following projectile attacks by armed groups in Gaza.
Israel’s army had no immediate comment on the strikes.
But the military branch responsible for civil affairs in the Palestinian territories (COGAT) said the fishing zone had been reduced from 12 nautical miles to six.
“The decision was made following the continued launching of incendiary balloons from the Gaza Strip toward Israel, which constitutes a violation of Israeli sovereignty,” it said in a statement.
Hamas was “responsible for all activities within the Gaza Strip and all actions originating in the Gaza Strip directed toward the state of Israel,” COGAT said.
“It will therefore bear the consequences for the violence committed against the citizens of the state of Israel.”
Israeli firefighters earlier said they extinguished brush blazes at three spots in the Eshkol region near the border, blaming blaming “incendiary balloons” as the cause.
The balloons are basic devices intended to set fire to farmland surrounding the Israeli-blockaded Palestinian enclave.
On July 12, Israel announced it was re-expanding the fishing zone off Gaza and allowing additional imports into the Palestinian territory but warned the measure could be reversed in response to fresh unrest.
