Egyptian soldiers kill Palestinian youthn

Egyptian border troops shot and killed a Palestinian youth on Friday. According to Reuters, Palestinian and Egyptian sources said that he was trying to cross the border from the Gaza Strip illegally at the time. Medical officials and local residents in southern Gaza said that the young man was one of a group of four who tried to cross into Egypt.

A spokesman for the Palestinian Ministry of the Interior in Gaza, Eyad Al-Bozom, named the victim as Zaki Al-Hoobi; he was killed while still in Palestine. His three companions were arrested on the Egyptian side of the border.

Police in northern Sinai confirmed that Egyptian soldiers had opened fire on a group of Palestinian youths, who were trying to cross the border in order to buy cigarettes to sell in Gaza. It was not a terrorist operation.

Egypt enforces the Israeli-led siege of the Gaza Strip, which has been in place since 2006. Thousands of smuggling tunnels used to break the siege have been destroyed by the Egyptian army since the military coup overthrew the democratic government in 2013.