GAZA CITY, 27 May 2004 — A Palestinian man was killed yesterday by Israeli fire in the southern Gaza Strip town of Rafah, site of a devastating weeklong Israeli raid that ended earlier this week, Palestinian medical sources said.
Mohammed Zurob, 42, was hit in the chest by fire originating from an Israeli army position near the border between the Gaza Strip and Egypt, the sources said.
He was near the Tal Al-Sultan neighborhood in the Rafah refugee camp when he was hit, witnesses said.
It was not immediately clear why the Israeli army opened fire.
Meanwhile, an ambulance crew recovered the body of a second Palestinian, killed overnight near the Sufa crossing point between Gaza and Israel, Palestinian sources said.
Imad Abu Eid, 21, who had been shot in the head, did not belong to any militant organization, relatives said.
The army said that Tuesday night troops had fired on and hit a suspect Palestinian approaching the security barrier, having earlier received intelligence of possible Palestinian attacks.
Israeli troops withdrew from Rafah town and the adjacent refugee camp on Monday after a weeklong offensive that claimed the lives of 43 Palestinians and leveled dozens of homes.
The death brought to 4,085 the number of people killed since the September 2000 outbreak of the Palestinian uprising, including 3,096 Palestinians and 918 Israelis, according to an AFP count.
