Palestinian farmer killed in attack by Israeli forces in Gaza Strip

A Palestinian farmer has succumbed to his gunshot wounds after Israeli forces opened fire on him in the southern Gaza Strip, as the Tel Aviv regime’s acts of aggression against the Palestinians continue in the besieged territory.  

Medical sources and eyewitnesses said Israeli forces shot 59-year-old farmer Mohammed Atta Abdul Mawla Abu Jameh in Khuza’a town east of the city of Khan Younis, located about 25 kilometers (15 miles) south of Gaza City, on Saturday afternoon.

Spokesman for the Gaza Ministry of Health, Ashraf al-Qidra, later said in a statement that the injured farmer had died of wounds in his back.

The Gaza Strip has been under an Israeli siege since June 2007. The blockade has caused a decline in living standards as well as unprecedented levels of unemployment and unrelenting poverty.

Under the Israeli blockade, about 1.8 million people in Gaza are deprived of their basic rights, such as freedom of movement, jobs with proper wages as well as adequate health care and education.

The Tel Aviv regime has also launched several wars on the Palestinian sliver, the last of which in early July 2014. The Israeli military aggression, which ended on August 26 the same year, killed nearly 2,200 Palestinians. Over 11,100 others were also wounded in the war.

The development came a day after dozens of Palestinians were injured in clashes with Israeli army forces in the occupied West Bank and the Gaza Strip.

Clashes broke out after Friday noon prayers as part of protest rallies against US President Donald Trump’s declaration of Jerusalem al-Quds as the capital of Israel.

Eyewitnesses said fierce scuffles broke out between Palestinian demonstrators and Israeli forces in the village of Bil’in, situated 12 kilometers west of the central West Bank city of Ramallah, after demonstrators threw stones at the troopers.

Israeli forces fired teargas canisters as well as rubber and live bullets in return.

Similar clashes also erupted in several West Bank towns and cities, where Israeli soldiers used tear gas and gunshots to disperse the protesters.

In the Gaza Strip, hundreds of people took part in a demonstration organized by the Hamas resistance movement.

The Palestinian health ministry later said in a statement that 16 Palestinians had been injured in the Gaza Strip, while three others sustained injuries in the West Bank. Dozens more were also treated on field for tear gas inhalation.