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Photo: Fadel Mohammad Halawa - Palestine Info

Palestinian workers salvage building materials near Erez Crossing at Gaza’s northern border, Beit Hanoun, May 11, 2014. Human rights organizations have documented dozens of cases of Israeli army gunfire at persons who posed no threat and were well outside the 300-meter so-called “no-go zone” imposed by the Israeli military inside Gaza’s borders. In many cases, no warning was given before soldiers opened fire. (photo: Ryan Rodrick Beiler/Activestills.org)
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GAZA CITY (Ma'an) -- A Palestinian man was shot dead by Israeli troops in the northern Gaza Strip on Sunday, medical sources and witnesses said.

Witnesses said Fadil Muhammad Halawah, 32, was hunting birds east of Jabaliya when Israeli soldiers shot him dead.

Ashraf al-Qidra, spokesman for the Palestinian health ministry, said Halawah arrived at Kamal Udwan hospital in Jabaliya with a gunshot wound.

Doctors pronounced him dead on arrival.

An Israeli military spokesman told Ma'an that two Palestinians approached the separation barrier in the northern Gaza Strip on Sunday.

Soldiers called on the two to stop and fired warning shots in the air, the spokesman said.

When the two Palestinians "refused to comply," soldiers "fired at the lower extremities, confirming one hit."

The spokesman could not provide any further information.

Halwah is the first Palestinian to be killed by Israeli forces in the Gaza Strip since the signing of a ceasefire agreement between Palestinian militants and Israel in late August, ending 50 days of violence.
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By Activestills
|Published November 26, 2014

Israeli forces shot and killed Palestinian farmer Fadel Mohammed Halawa, 32, near Gaza’s border with Israel on Sunday. Relatives say he was searching for songbirds that fetch high prices in Gaza markets.

An Israeli military spokesperson said that troops warned two Palestinians to leave the border zone and first fired warning shots. “Once they didn’t comply, they fired towards their lower extremities. There was one hit,” a spokesperson told Al Jazeera.

Gaza medical officials told the BBC that Halawa was shot in the back, and that the shots appeared to have been fired from an Israeli border watchtower.

Halawa is the first Palestinian to be killed since the ceasefire that ended the Israeli offensive known as “Operation Protective Edge.” According UN statistics, Israeli attacks killed some 2,200 Palestinians in seven weeks, most of them civilians. Rockets from Gaza killed five civilians in Israel, and 66 Israeli soldiers died in the fighting. Israeli forces have shot and wounded several Palestinians since the start of the ceasefire.

As a B’Tselem report from the start of 2014 indicates, the shooting of unarmed Palestinians near the Gaza border constitutes an ongoing pattern of excessive lethal force:

Israel completed the disengagement in September 2005. From then until the end of July 2006, soldiers have killed fourteen unarmed Palestinians near the perimeter fence [as of January 1, 2014]. Five of the fatalities were minors, one of them an eight-year-old girl. Eight of the dead did not even try to reach the fence, and were shot at a distance of from 100 to 800 meters from the fence. Four other civilians were shot when they tried to cross the fence and sneak into Israel to work, and two were shot near the Israeli border. The IDF’s announcement confirms that none of the persons killed were carrying weapons or objects with which they could mount an attack. B’Tselem’s research also indicates that Israel ‘s security forces did not warn the Palestinians to go away from the area, and they were not given the opportunity to hand themselves over to the soldiers. The IDF Spokesperson’s Office only announced that the soldiers opened fire when they suspected that Palestinians intended to fire at them or sought to place explosives near the fence. …

A primary principle of international humanitarian law is the distinction between combatants and civilians. … Automatically opening fire at every person who enters a certain area, regardless of the person’s identity or the circumstances of the incident, such as in the cases described above, is “indiscriminate firing,” which is liable to constitute a war crime.