Israeli police shot and killed a Palestinian man as he tried to scale the concrete barrier that separates the occupied West Bank from Jerusalem on Tuesday evening, Palestinian authorities said, the latest death along a dividing line that has become a focal point of economic desperation and lethal force.
The Palestinian Health Ministry and the Palestinian Red Crescent identified the man as Zakaria Qatusa, 44, from the town of Deir Qadis, roughly 20 kilometers northwest of the shooting site in the West Bank town of Al-Ram, which abuts the wall. Israeli police did not respond to queries about the shooting, the Associated Press reported. Qatusa’s funeral was held Wednesday.
His brother, Khalid Qatusa, told the AP that Zakaria was a father of four who was crossing the barrier in order to work in Israel. “He was forced to resort to this method as there was no other opportunity to meet the needs of his household and live a dignified life. This was the only way,” Khalid Qatusa said. “He was neither an aggressor nor a threat.”
An increasing number of Palestinians from the occupied West Bank have attempted to enter Israel illegally to find work in recent years. Before the Israel-Hamas war, tens of thousands of Palestinians held permits to work in Israel, but access was sharply restricted after the Hamas-led attack on southern Israel on Oct. 7, 2023. Since then, unemployment has surged amid a deep economic slowdown and a shortage of jobs in the West Bank. Other shootings have occurred at the same stretch of barrier between Al-Ram and Beit Hanina, an east Jerusalem neighborhood.
On Wednesday, a separate fatal encounter unfolded in the northern West Bank village of Al-Lubban al-Sharqiya, where the Ramallah-based Palestinian Health Ministry said 16-year-old Youssef Kaabneh was killed in a clash with Israeli settlers and soldiers. The Israeli military said soldiers and police officers entered the area after reports that livestock from an Israeli outpost had been stolen, and that they worked to disperse what they described as a violent riot. The military said the incident was under investigation.
Family members told the AP that settlers and Israeli soldiers descended on the Bedouin community and that Kaabneh was shot during a confrontation involving a sheep herd. Livestock theft has become a major source of conflict between Israelis and Palestinians this year as Israeli settlers have expanded their presence and outposts in the territory.
“Our lives have become a living hell. Settlers can now enter any house or farm and confiscate whatever they want, as if we are spoils of war,” said Ismail Owais, a 60-year-old resident of Al-Lubban al-Sharqiya.
According to the U.N. Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs, Israeli forces or settlers killed at least 47 Palestinians in the occupied West Bank this year as of May 11. Several of the dead, like Kaabneh, have been teenagers.