Israeli police kill Palestinian father of four at West Bank barrier

Israeli police killed a 44-year-old Palestinian father of four as he tried to climb the concrete barrier near Al-Ram, a crossing point that has become a deadly route for men chasing work after permits dried up. Zakaria Qatusa, from the West Bank town of Deir Qadis, was trying to reach Israel when he was shot on Tuesday night, turning a routine struggle for income into another fatal encounter at the wall.

Qatusa’s funeral was held Wednesday. His brother said he was trying to cross into Israel for work because he had no other way to provide for his family, a detail that cuts to the core of the crisis around the barrier: for many Palestinians, movement restrictions are not an abstraction but a direct threat to survival. The concrete wall that Israeli authorities describe as a security measure has also become a choke point for labor, income and daily life.

The killing fits a broader pattern documented by the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs. Since October 7, 2023, OCHA has said Israeli authorities revoked or suspended most permits that had allowed Palestinian workers and others to enter East Jerusalem and Israel, and that 17 Palestinians were killed and 262 injured while trying to cross the barrier, many of them reportedly seeking employment. OCHA has also said 3.3 million Palestinians in the West Bank, including East Jerusalem, have faced additional movement restrictions, and a March 2024 survey found 86 new movement obstacles in the territory.

Similar shootings have occurred at the crossing between Al-Ram and Beit Hanina, underscoring how the same stretch of barrier has become a recurring flashpoint. The area sits inside a wider escalation that has driven the West Bank death toll sharply higher since the war began. OCHA reported 999 Palestinians killed in the West Bank, including East Jerusalem, between October 7, 2023 and October 6, 2025. The Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights later said at least 1,017 Palestinians had been killed there by Israeli security forces and settlers by November 13, 2025, including 221 children.

The violence has also displaced more than 10,000 Palestinians across the West Bank since October 7, 2023, according to OCHA, amid settler attacks and access restrictions. In February 2026, the U.N. rights office warned that new Israeli operations and settlement plans risk undermining the viability of a Palestinian state. At Al-Ram, that larger political struggle is felt in the most immediate way possible: by a father who crossed toward the wall for a paycheck and did not come home.