Israeli naval forces, today, attacked Palestinian fishing boats offshore al-Sudaniya, northwest of Gaza City, according to WAFA correspondence.
He said that the Israeli navy opened gunfire and shot water hoses towards fishing boats sailing within three nautical miles offshore, causing material damages.
No injuries were reported among the fishermen, who were forced to swim to the coast.
Israel has maintained a crippling blockade on the Gaza Strip since Hamas was elected and took power in 2007, denying the impoverished enclave’s population of two million their basic rights, and causing a sharp decline in their standard of living, coupled with unprecedented rates of unemployment and poverty.
Under the Oslo Accords, signed in 1993, Israel is obligated to permit fishing up to 20 nautical miles, but this has never been implemented.
Israel maintains a heavy naval presence, restricting any traffic in and out of the enclave, and limits the distance Gaza’s fishermen can travel to fish, severely affecting the livelihoods of some 4,000 fishermen and at least 1,500 more people involved in the fishing industry.
Israel has, over the past decade, launched three major onslaughts on Gaza that have heavily damaged much of the enclave’s infrastructure.
Every two in three Palestinians, in Gaza, is a refugee from lands inside what is now Israel. The Israeli government forbids them from exercising their right to return, as enshrined in international law.
(PNN archive image)
