Description

GAZA CITY (Ma’an) -- Israel's navy detained a group of fishermen off the coast of Gaza on Sunday morning, the army said.

Local official Mahfouth al-Kabareeti told Ma'an that Israeli naval forces detained eight men.

An Israeli army spokeswoman said that navy forces fired at the engine of a Palestinian fishing boat after it had deviated from the designated fishing area.

No injuries were reported and the boat was transferred to the Israeli port of Ashdod. The fishermen were transferred to the custody of security forces, the spokeswoman added.

Israeli and Palestinian negotiators agreed on a 20-nautical-mile fishing zone off Gaza's coast under the Oslo Accords, but Israel unilaterally imposes a 3-mile limit. Israeli warships frequently open fire at boats that allegedly stray from the permitted area.

Fishermen say the limits have destroyed their livelihood and that it is impossible to trawl a large catch within the designated area.

Israel has controlled Gaza waters since its occupation of the area in 1967, and has kept several warships stationed off the coast since 2008.

_______

Israeli Navy Kidnaps Five Fishermen

by Saed Bannoura - IMEMC & Agencies

Palestinian sources reported that the Israeli Navy kidnapped, on Sunday morning, five fishermen, four of them brothers, near the Gaza Port and took them to the Ashdod Port.

Nizar Ayyash, chairman of the Gaza Fishermen Association, stated that the Navy attacked the boat and kidnapped five fishermen who were on-board.

The five were identified Ashraf, Amjad, Ahmad and Yasser Ash-Shirafy, in addition to a fifth fisherman who carries Egyptian citizenship.

The attack is one of dozens of similar attacks targeting Palestinian fishermen in Palestinian territorial waters; these attacks include opening fire at the fishermen, spraying them with water, and even attempts to crash their boats. Casualties and arrests in previous attacks were reported.

As part of its siege on the coastal region, Palestinian fishermen are facing further and more serious restrictions on their right to fish in Palestinian waters.

Restrictions on the fishing zone are of considerable significance to Palestinian livelihood. Initially set at twenty nautical miles, it is presently often enforced between 1.5 – 2 nautical miles (Palestinian Center for Human Rights, PCHR: 2010). The marine ‘buffer zone’ restricts Gazan fishermen from accessing 85% of Gaza’s fishing waters which was agreed to by Oslo.”

The fishing community is often similarly targeted as the farmers in the ‘buffer zone’, and the fishing limit is enforced with comparable aggression, with boats shot at or rammed as near as 2nm to the Gaza coast by Israeli gunboats.

The “buffer zone” is a no-entrance zone Israel has enforced on all areas in the Gaza Strip that are close to the border.

Most of these areas are farmlands, an issue that devastated the families that depend on farming as their only source of livelihood. Dozens of casualties were reported when the army opened fire at farmers working near the border.