Palestinian-Israeli, 15, shot and killed on border with Egypt

A 15-year-old Arab-Israeli civilian was shot and killed on Tuesday while working on a fence on the Egyptian border, the Israeli military said.

The army said in a statement that the shooting did not appear to be connected to militant action and that the Israeli and Egyptian militaries were investigating the incident.

Israel's defence ministry named the victim as Nimr Abu-Amar an Arab Israeli working for a contractor firm it had hired to carry out maintenance work on the border fence between the Gaza Strip and Eilat.

He died of his wounds while being airlifted to an Israeli hospital from the remote Israel-Egypt border area in the Negev desert where the shooting occurred, an army spokeswoman said.

Bassam Abu-Amar, Nimr's father, said his son had accompanied family members working on the border fence doing odd jobs and preparing coffee for other members of the crew.

There were no further details on the source of the shots, but militants loyal to the Islamic State group are waging a deadly insurgency in Egypt's Sinai Peninsula, which borders Israel.

An Israeli solider was killed in late 2012 when militants from Ansar Beit al-Maqdis, who have since pledged allegiance to IS, opened fire on soldiers protecting construction workers near the same area as Tuesday’s events.

Three of the militants were killed in the clashes.

Israeli daily Haaretz have reported that the area is prone to clashes.

One Israeli and one Egyptian smuggler were killed in the region in March 2012, and nearly three years later in February 2015, another two people were killed in clashes with Israeli troops in another attempted smuggling operation.

Egypt and Jordan are the only two Arab countries to have peace treaties with Israel.