JERUSALEM, Oct 3 (Reuters) - Israeli paramilitary border police killed a Palestinian on Sunday after he entered East Jerusalem from the occupied West Bank without a permit.
A police spokesman said the man, 37, was shot while trying to grab a border policeman's pistol. A Palestinian who said he witnessed the incident, which occurred before dawn, disputed the police account.
Salah Abed Rabbo said he and the man killed in the shooting, Ezz el-Deen Kawazba, were among six Palestinian labourers who had slipped across an Israeli barrier, which takes in much of East Jerusalem, and fled from border policemen giving chase.
"Ezz el-Deen lagged behind, and the soldier attacked him and shot him. Ezz el-Deen fell to the ground without making any noise," Abed Rabbo said.
He said he witnessed the shooting after reaching higher ground and turning around to check on what was happening. Police said the incident would be investigated by its internal affairs department.
Jerusalem is at the core of the Middle East conflict, with Palestinians seeing its eastern section as capital of a state they hope to found in the adjacent West Bank and the Gaza Strip.
Israel captured East Jerusalem from Jordan in the 1967 war and calls the whole city its capital, a status not recognised abroad. After an armed Palestinian revolt erupted a decade ago, Israel erected the barrier, a move it called a security measure and which Palestinians condemned as a land grab. (Additional reporting by Ali Sawafta in Ramallah, Writing by Dan Williams and Jeffrey Heller; editing by Matthew Jones)