But as soon as Ishaq Hassan crossed the frontier, Egyptian border guards opened fire, spraying the sea with bullets while ignoring a Palestinian guard who whistled and frantically gestured with his hands that Hassan had mental problems. A video that captured the shooting made at least one thing clear: Hassan appeared to pose no immediate threat to anyone. Palestinian man Ishaq Khalil Hassan, 28, crosses the border from the Gaza Strip into Egypt. Credit:al-Jazeera television When the firing stopped, Egyptian soldiers pulled Hassan's apparently lifeless body from the water, as the camera kept rolling: an image that evoked the perilous journeys of migrants across the Mediterranean but also laid bare the imprisoned lives of Palestinians in Gaza, unable to wander even a few steps from their own borders. Since the 2013 coup that removed Egypt's democratically elected government and replaced it with a military regime headed by Abdel-Fattah al-Sisi, Egypt's border with Gaza has become an increasingly impenetrable front, fuelling desperation among Palestinians trapped between Egypt and Israel, which also severely restricts crossings into and out of Gaza. Mr Sisi's regime has kept the border closed for 339 days this year, according to the Interior Ministry in Gaza. More than 25,000 people are waiting to cross, including Palestinians seeking medical treatment or trying to study abroad, ministry officials said.

The Egyptian authorities have also destroyed many of the smuggling tunnels beneath the border, one of the few links between Gaza and the outside world. A Palestinian border guard gestures to Egyptian border guards as they fire into the water, eventually killing Ishaq Khalil Hassan. Credit:al-Jazeera television As they grapple with an Islamist insurgency in the Sinai Peninsula, Egyptian officials have justified the border crackdown as a necessary measure to deter the flow of militants and weapons. At the same time, the border guards appear increasingly willing to use deadly force against anyone trying to cross. In the last six weeks, Egyptian border guards have fatally shot at least 20 Sudanese migrants trying to cross into Israel. The video of Hassan's killing was first aired on the Qatari satellite channel al-Jazeera, which said he had been mentally ill. Officials from Hamas, the militant group that governs Gaza, repeated the assertion. Iyad al-Bozum, a spokesman for the Interior Ministry, said Palestinian border guards had tried to detain Hassan but that he had escaped. Amna Hassan, mother of Ishaq Khalil Hassan, with photos and documents relating to her son. Credit:New York Times

The Egyptians, he said, "killed him cold blood". "This is a crime in daylight and a clear violation of international law," Mr Bozum said, "because the man was completely unarmed and also mentally sick." Amna Hassan shows photographs and education certificates belonging to her son Ishaq Khalil Hassan, who was gunned down by Egyptian border guards. Credit:New York Times But his family strongly denied that Hassan suffered from any mental illness, saying that he was preparing a new apartment and searching for a wife. They also said he had been studying English at an American non-profit organisation that provides education and training in the Middle East. But he was frantic to leave Gaza, they said. Hassan was still suffering from gunshot wounds to the leg he sustained in 2007, when he was shot while shopping during clashes between rival Palestinian factions, his relatives said.

Egyptians demonstrate in support of Gaza and call for the Egyptian government to open the Rafah border crossing outside Cairo University in November 2012. Credit:AP "He could not sleep at night due to the pain," said his brother Ibrahim Hassan. He said Hassan had been able to travel to Egypt once, shortly after he was shot, for medical treatment. Hassan had tried to reach Egypt three times this year, but the border remained closed, his brother said. So sometime Thursday, Hassan took off his clothes, and laid them on a rock on the beach, near the border. He undressed, his family said, so that the border guards would know that he was a civilian and unarmed. Palestinians in a bus crossing into Egypt through the Rafah border crossing in June 2011. Since the 2013 military coup brought Abdel-Fattah al-Sisi to power in Egypt, the border regime has tightened dramatically. Credit:AP Palestinian officials failed Hassan, including by not preventing him from crossing, his family said. And the Egyptian government is proving itself as repressive, if not more so, than the Israeli government, they added.

"My pain is deep," said Hassan's father, Khalil. "They published the video on al-Jazeera, and I wonder why they did not stop him? Why did the camera keep filming?" Mr Bozum said that the Egyptians had promised to return Hassan's body in a few days. But his family said they had yet to receive any confirmation of his death. "This story is not just about Ishaq," said his sister, Neama. "It became about everyone. Now people feel that their sons could be Ishaq at any moment." New York Times