Gunmen kill Israeli worker

JERUSALEM — An Israeli man reportedly working on a border fence between Israel and Egypt was shot and killed on Tuesday when gunmen in Egypt opened fire at him, officials from both countries said. It was a rare incident of violence along the normally quiet border and reflected the threat that both Israel and Egypt face from both criminal trafficking rings and Islamic militant groups operating in the area. The Israeli military said the man was “shot and fatally wounded” and died as he was being rushed to hospital. It declined to say what he was doing, but Israeli media said he was a contractor working on the fence. The military said the incident “does not appear to be connected to terror activities,” without elaborating. A senior Egyptian security official said that human traffickers shot at Israelis working on the barrier, which stretches along the 240-km border between Egypt and Israel and is meant to prevent migrants from crossing into Israel. The official said the gunmen shot at the workers in an attempt to disrupt work on the fence. He said the shooting took place in al-Kontala, a district in Egypt known as a hub of human and drug trafficking. He said security forces returned fire but made no arrests following the incident.