Israeli troops at the Gaza border shot dead a Palestinian man and wounded 15 more on November 23, health officials said, in the first fatality since a cease-fire between Hamas and Israel. A Hamas spokesman accused Israel of violating the Egyptian-mediated truce and said the group would complain to Cairo. Health officials said Anwar Qdeih, 23, was hit in the head by Israeli gunfire after he approached the security fence that runs between Israel and Gaza. “Anwar was trying to put a Hamas flag on the fence,” said Omar Qdeih, a relative of the man killed who was at the scene. “The army fired three times into the air. Anwar shouted at them ‘Jabari is behind you’, then they shot him in the head,” he said.
A survey by Israel’s Maariv newspaper, the first since the truce took hold, said that 31 per cent of Israelis approved of the cease-fire while 49 per cent were opposed. Asked if the army should have re-occupied Gaza, 41 per cent were against and 29 per cent in favour. A Palestinian envoy said that he hoped China would play a greater role in supporting his people in the conflict as a counterweight to the United States’ influence over the peace process. Bassam Al-Salhi said in Beijing following a meeting with Foreign Minister Yang Jiechi that China said it backed the Palestinians in the Gaza conflict and in their bid to upgrade their status at the UN. He said Beijing was giving them $1 million in aid. But Al-Salhi said Beijing could still do more for the Palestinians.