By Emma Farge
GENEVA, May 27 (Reuters) - About a third of Palestinians killed by Israel since an October truce were in areas near the military's armistice line with Hamas, raising concerns that troops may be shooting at civilians merely for approaching the area, the U.N. human rights office said.
The office said such actions would constitute unlawful killings and thus war crimes. Israel's military, which says fire by its troops near the armistice line aims to thwart militant threats, did not immediately provide comment on the allegations.
Israel has demarcated its armistice boundary with Hamas since the truce with a "yellow line" marked on the ground with spaced out concrete blocks. Israeli troops remain deployed to its east, with Hamas in control in a coastal strip of land.
But the military has frequently shifted those blocks deeper into Hamas-controlled territory, and Israeli maps show a widened restricted zone of military control now covers nearly two-thirds of Gaza.
Israel's expanding zone of control has stirred fears among displaced Palestinians living in tent encampments and bombed out homes near the yellow line that they may be deemed military targets, as the population is squeezed into an even smaller area.
U.N. SAYS KILLINGS MAY BE UNLAWFUL
The U.N. data, shared exclusively with Reuters, includes 453 verified killings since the ceasefire through to February 5. Of those, 152 Palestinians - comprising 102 men, 15 women, 24 boys and 11 girls - were near the boundary, it said.
"The available information raises serious concerns that the Israeli army is shooting at and killing presumed civilians simply on the basis of their proximity to the so-called yellow line, which would amount to unlawful killings and thus war crimes," said Ajith Sunghay, head of the U.N. Human Rights Office in the occupied Palestinian territory, calling the pattern alarming.
"Civilians do not appear to have posed any risk to the life of the Israeli military, including some cases in which they appear to have been shot while carrying out daily activities or having approached or crossed Israel's so-called yellow line," he said.
The boundary location was often not clear to Palestinians, he added. "Nobody clearly knows exactly where it starts, where it ends, and how it moves, and when it moves."
Israeli officials describe the territory they've seized in Gaza, Syria and Lebanon as "buffer zones" that can stave off potential militant attacks following the October 7, 2023 Hamas-led assault that set off the Gaza war.
The ceasefire brokered by U.S. President Donald Trump has failed to halt Israeli attacks in Gaza, and Israel has continued to target Hamas leaders, killing two in the past two weeks.
Overall, some 900 Palestinians have been killed in Israeli strikes since the truce, Gaza health authorities say, without giving a breakdown by location.
Four Israeli soldiers have been killed by militants during the same period, the country's military has said. Hamas has not released figures on its war dead.
(Reporting by Emma FargeEditing by Keith Weir)
