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Man shot at Gaza border; Gaza reconstruction continues

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A Palestinian man was shot yesterday while approaching the border fence between Gaza and Israel. According to IDF reports, two men advanced towards the border despite warning shots fired in the air. The wounded man later died of his injuries. Palestinian media claims that the 32-year old man was hunting birds to sell inside the closed buffer zone around the Gaza border fence, becoming the first Palestinian casualty from Israeli fire in Gaza since the summer war.

Also yesterday, two Palestinians successfully infiltrated into Israel from Gaza in the Kerem Shalom area. They were stopped inside Israel by the IDF and one of the men was discovered to be carrying a hand grenade.

Meanwhile, the United Nations and Palestinian Authority (PA) have announced that a second shipment of building materials will head to Gaza next week.

According to Haaretz, PA Minister of Civilian Affairs Hussein a-Sheikh wrote a note on Facebook – a common platform for political announcements by both Israeli and Palestinian leaders – which said that the PA would bring heavy equipment such as bulldozers and buses into the Gaza strip next week, in coordination with the UN and Israel. Materials to help 24,000 families repair their homes will also arrive.

The reconstruction of Gaza has slowed due to the increasing tensions between Gaza’s Hamas rulers and Fatah which controls the PA. These tensions, which have seen Hamas bombings of Fatah inside Gaza in recent weeks, have made it harder for the PA to transfer building materials to the strip while ensuring that they are not used to build terror infrastructure.