Israeli soldiers stationed on the border with the northern Gaza Strip shot and wounded on Saturday a 12-year-old boy, medics and witnesses said, DPA reported.
Adham Abu Selmeya, spokesman of the medical services in the coastal enclave ruled by Islamic Hamas movement told reporters that the boy was slightly wounded in the shooting near the town of Beit Lahia. The boy was collecting gravel when he was shot.
Witnesses said that Israeli soldiers at the border open fire at any resident who approaches a 300-meter buffer security zone on the Gaza Strip side of the border. They say this prevents farmers from reaching their fields that are close to the border area.
Abu Selmeya said that over the past several weeks, more than ten residents, most of them teenagers and children, had been wounded in the northern Gaza Strip in gunfire from the Israeli soldiers.
However, witnesses say that dozens of teens, children, men and women still venture into the area to collect rocks and gravel from the evacuated Jewish settlements and then sell them to earn some money.
The Gaza Strip has been under a tight Israeli blockade for four years. It was tightened after the Islamic movement of Hamas seized control of the enclave by force in June 2007.
The blockade has led to a shortage of construction materials for new housing in the Gaza, leading residents to search for gravel in the former settlements.