GAZA — A 20-year-old Palestinian demonstrator was shot dead in Gaza by Israeli security forces on Wednesday, and at least four other men who were smuggling fuel died in a tunnel after the Egyptian authorities blew up another tunnel nearby, officials here said.
Mohamed al-Maidana, a civil defense officer, said that the Egyptian strike, which came late Tuesday, set a fire that spread to the neighboring tunnel and ignited the fuel. The fire used up all the oxygen in the tunnel, he said, and the men suffocated. In the face of a blockade by Israel and Egypt, such tunnels are a mainstay of the Gazan economy.
The slain protester, Ahmad Salem, was part of a 30-person demonstration against Israel’s policy of barring anyone in Gaza from coming within several hundred yards of the border barrier, in order to prevent hostile activity there.
An Israeli military spokeswoman said that the demonstrators hurled stones over the barrier at Israeli troops and set fires that could have damaged the barrier. An investigation had been ordered into the shooting, she said.
Demonstrations against the Israeli buffer policy in Gaza have grown in recent weeks but Hamas, which rules Gaza, has not sent its supporters because it does not wish to increase tensions with Israel.
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