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JERUSALEM: Israeli police said border officers shot dead a Palestinian man on Monday as he tried to enter Jerusalem by climbing over the barrier separating the city from the occupied West Bank.
The Palestinian health ministry in Ramallah identified the man as Sanad Najeh Mohammed Hantouli, 25, saying he was killed by Israeli gunfire near the West Bank town of Al-Ram, north of Jerusalem.
An Israeli police spokesperson reported that border police officers “foiled an infiltration attempt through the security barrier in Jerusalem.”
“The suspect was shot and neutralized,” the spokesperson said in a statement, adding he was later pronounced dead by medical teams.
Hantouli’s body was transferred to the Palestine Medical Complex in Ramallah before being taken to his hometown, Silat Al-Dhahr.
Many Palestinians have attempted to cross the separation barrier illegally in recent months, seeking work inside Israel after authorities there revoked thousands of work permits following the outbreak of the Gaza war.
Many have died fleeing from Israeli forces, Palestinian officials say.
Israel began building the barrier at the height of the second Palestinian intifada, which began in 2002, saying it was needed to maintain security amid Palestinian suicide bombings in Jerusalem and Israeli cities.
The barrier cuts into many parts of the West Bank, and Palestinians see it as a land grab and a de facto border, illegal under international law.
Palestinians say the barrier has further deepened the economic crisis in the West Bank.
Israel maintains tight restrictions on the movement of the West Bank’s roughly three million residents, who require special permits to cross checkpoints into East Jerusalem or Israel.
Al-Ram, located near the Qalandiya checkpoint, is separated from Jerusalem by a section of the barrier reinforced with barbed wire.
A joint World Bank, EU and UN report released in February 2025 said just 27,000 Palestinians were working in Israel and West Bank settlements, down from 177,000 before the Gaza war broke out in October 2023.
Israel has occupied the West Bank, including East Jerusalem, since 1967.
Violence has sharply escalated in the Palestinian territory since the Gaza war began.
At least 977 Palestinians — both militants and civilians — have been killed by Israeli forces or settlers in the West Bank since October 2023, according to AFP figures based on Palestinian Authority data.
In the same period, at least 42 Israelis, including soldiers and civilians, have been killed in attacks or military operations in the West Bank, Israeli official figures show.

GENEVA: Israel is trying to make Gaza City unliveable in its assault on the enclave’s largest urban area and is endangering the lives of Israeli hostages, the top UN expert on Palestinian rights Francesca Albanese said on Monday.

“Israel is bombing using unconventional weapons ... it is trying to forcibly evacuate Palestinians. Why? This is the last piece of Gaza that needs to be rendered unlivable before advancing the ethnic cleansing of that piece of land,” Albanese told reporters in Geneva.
The Israeli mission in Geneva was not immediately available for comment.
Israel says the offensive to take control of Gaza City is part of a plan to defeat Palestinian militant group Hamas for good and that it has warned civilians to head south to a designated humanitarian zone.
However, the UN and numerous countries say its tactics amount to forced mass displacement and that conditions in the humanitarian zone are dire, with food in short supply.

Italian lawyer Albanese serves as a special rapporteur on human rights in the occupied Palestinian territories, one of dozens of experts appointed by the 47-member UN Human Rights Council to report on specific global issues.
“The ongoing assault to take the last remnant of Gaza will not only devastate the Palestinians but endanger also the remaining Israeli hostages,” Albanese said.
She accused Israel of genocide and said the international community was complicit.
The nearly two-year campaign in the Palestinian enclave has killed more than 64,000 people, according to local authorities. Some rights groups like Amnesty International have also accused Israel of committing genocide, but not the United Nations itself. UN officials have in the past said it is up to international courts to determine genocide.
Israel rejects the accusation, citing its right to self-defense following the October 7, 2023, attack by Hamas militants that killed 1,200 people and resulted in the capture of 251 hostages, according to Israeli figures.
In July, the US Secretary of State Marco Rubio announced that Albanese would be added to the US sanctions list for her actions, which he described as prompting illegitimate prosecutions of Israelis at the International Criminal Court.
Albanese said her attempts to travel to New York for the UN General Assembly in September to deliver a report do not look promising.