Although early reports indicated that Mofeed Arafat, 25, a mentally challenged resident of Gaza, had been killed late Wednesday night, medical sources indicate that he is alive and in serious condition.
Earlier on Wednesday, Israeli soldiers shot and killed a mentally-disabled 15-year old child in Qabatia, near the West Bank city of Jenin, allegedly because the boy was carrying a toy gun (although some sources said it was just a stick).
A Palestinian medical source reported that Mofeed Arafat was shot by Israeli fire while walking near the “security fence” between Gaza and Israel, and another resident was injured.
The incident took place as the army resumed shelling several areas in the northern and eastern parts of the Gaza Strip.
An Israeli Army source claimed that the targets are areas used by resistance factions as launching pads for homemade shells. The Gaza Strip, with 1.2 million people on less than 40 square kilometers, is the most crowded place on earth, and human rights groups monitoring the situation have pleaded that any aerial attack on such a crowded area will result in the deaths of civilians.
