Israeli forces kill Palestinian fisherman in besieged Gaza

Israeli forces killed a Palestinian after they opened fire on a boat from the besieged Gaza Strip after it left a zone where Israel allows Palestinians to fish, officials said.

A spokeswoman for the Israeli army said the boat "deviated from the designated fishing zone in the northern Gaza Strip."

Naval forces called on the boat to halt, then fired warning shots in the air before shooting toward it when the three people inside did not stop, the spokeswoman said.

The fishermen's union in Gaza said a boat with three fishermen was fired upon by Israel's military.

Palestinian fishermen are regular targets of occupying Israeli forces.

Israel has maintained a crippling siege of the Gaza Strip for more than a decade which it says is necessary to isolate Hamas, with whom it has fought three wars since 2008.

Earlier this month, officials in Gaza announced that the besieged enclave’s sole electricity plant was powered down because of a lack of fuel, officials said, amid growing concerns over worsening humanitarian conditions.

The closure of the plant, which normally provides around a fifth of Gaza's electricity, will only exacerbate an already critical power shortage.

Nearly two million people live in Gaza and receive only four hours of electricity a day. Hospitals and other vital services rely on private generators provided by the United Nations, who warn Gaza hospitals are on the 'verge of disaster' as fuel for emergency generators run out.

Human rights groups say it amounts to collective punishment of Gaza's two million residents.