4th January 2014 | The Electronic Intifada, Joe Catron | Gaza City, Occupied Palestine
Small fishing boats, or hasakat, moored in the Gaza seaport. (Photo by Charlie Andreasson)
On 17 December, Palestinian
fishermen and their supporters erected a tent — a traditional venue for protest, as well as celebration and mourning — inside the
Gaza seaport.
“It
was to highlight the situation, the crimes of the Israelis against
fishermen here,” said Amjad al-Shrafi, treasurer of the General Union of
Fishermen. “We wanted to send a message about the
blockade against the fishermen and how we cannot fish freely.”
The
protest, organized under the title Free the Holy Land Sea, ended two
days later with the delivery of a letter to the nearby office of the
United Nations Special Coordinator for the Middle East Peace Process,
demanding international protection for fishermen.
Over three days,
hundreds of well-wishers visited a crowded tent decorated with banners
and posters supporting fishermen. The organizations represented on its
walls ranged from human rights centers to prisoner support groups.
Under fire
“One
of our main goals was to push governments around the world to force
Israel to give fishermen free lives and let us sail without any limits,”
al-Shrafi said. “It’s our right to sail freely in our waters.”
“Another was to pressure the Israeli forces to release the boats and fishermen they have captured.”
Palestinian fishermen in coastal waters off the Gaza Strip frequently come under fire by
Israeli naval forces, which target their boats on both sides of a boundary imposed by Israel.
Israel deploys its gunships into Palestinian waters using an information technology infrastructure administered by
Hewlett-Packard (“
Technologies of control: The case of Hewlett-Packard,” Who Profits, December 2011).
Through
its subsidiary, HP Israel, the US corporation won a contract to run the
Israeli navy’s computer and communications network in August 2006 (“
HP Israel wins navy IT outsourcing contract,”
Globes, 14 August 2006).
The fishing area permitted by Israel, which doubled in size as part of the ceasefire agreement ending
eight days of Israeli attacks on
the Gaza Strip and retaliatory fire by Palestinian resistance groups in
November 2012, now officially reaches six nautical miles from the
shore.
But fishermen say the Israeli navy often shoots at them and
sometimes captures them and their boats well within the zone it
ostensibly allows them.
Captured
Fishermen
and supporters hold posters with images of colleagues captured by
Israeli forces, in Gaza City on 19 December 2013. (Photo by
Joe Catron)
“We
were far from the prohibited zone, 500 meters away,” said Saddam Abu
Warda, a 23-year-old fisherman whom the Israeli navy captured along with
his 18-year-old brother Mahmoud around 9am on 10 November.
“They
were shouting, ‘You must get out of here in five minutes.’ We had to cut
the net to pull it out of the water. Then they started to fire bullets
close to our
hasaka [small boat]. As they came close to us, their boat looked like a big building with lights.”
The
Abu Wardas’ small boat had no engine. “We tried to escape by paddling
quickly,” Saddam Abu Warda said. “They forced us to take off our clothes
and raise our hands. They were firing bullets in the air and in front
of our
hasaka. One soldier was shouting, ‘You have to leave your
hasaka and get in the water.’ I was shocked. I couldn’t move. I didn’t know why.”
Finally,
gunfire forced the brothers into the cold water. “They didn’t stop
firing bullets over our heads,” Abu Warda said. “I was far from my
brother. He started shouting, saying, ‘I am injured.’ He wasn’t able to
keep swimming. I swam back to my brother to try and save him. His blood
was [spilling] in the water. Then two small boats came close to us. They
pulled my brother from the water. They didn’t take me.”
When Abu
Warda reached the Israeli gunship, he lost consciousness after soldiers
bound, hooded and kicked him. He awoke in a detention facility in
Ashdod,
a port in present-day Israel beside his brother Mahmoud, whose right
abdomen was stitched by military physicians. The brothers said that
Israeli bullets caused the wound.
During an interrogation after he
awoke, an Israeli soldier tried to convince him otherwise. “I told him,
‘Three of your gunboats were around us. They were firing bullets. My
brother’s blood was everywhere in the water. He was injured by your
soldiers.’”
After a lengthy interrogation that continued both in Ashdod port and after their transfer to a detention center by the
Erez crossing between Gaza and present-day Israel, Israeli forces released the Abu Wardas into the northern Gaza town of
Beit Hanoun around 10pm — 13 hours after their capture. Their boat and its equipment remained behind.
“We have three
hasakas in the Ashdod port,” Abu Warda said of his family’s prior losses to the Israeli navy.
Severe damage
The Abu Wardas’ experiences echo many more documented in a new report by the
Palestinian Centre for Human Rights (PCHR). The PCHR, which supported the Free the Holy Land Sea campaign, is translating the document — already
published in Arabic — into English.
Over
four years, from 1 September 2009 through 31 August 2013, the Israeli
navy killed two fishermen, wounded 24, and captured 147, according to
the report. The navy also seized 45 boats and destroyed or damaged 113
more.
The report also records the losses incurred by about thirty
bombings of four fishing ports during Israel’s November 2012 attacks on
the Gaza Strip, including damages to an additional 80 boats and
destruction of a health clinic and a youth center used by fishermen.
“There
was severe damage to different fishing facilities during the military
offensive,” said Khalil Shaheen, director of PCHR’s economic and social
rights unit.” At the ports in
Gaza City, Middle Area,
Khan Younis and
Rafah, different facilities were targeted and destroyed.”
“The
report also documents the impact of the total damage to fishermen and
the fishing sector,” Shaheen added. “One of the main impacts was the
loss of 85 percent of income in the fishing sector, as the result of
access restrictions and the naval blockade.”
Casualties have continued to mount in the four months since the period covered by the report ended. The PCHR publishes
regular reports on
human rights abuses in Gaza. These reports indicate that Israel has
shot at fishermen at least 37 times since September, as well as seizing
six boats.
“I would like to thank all the solidarity campaigns who
were involved in this action and show solidarity with Palestinian
fishermen,” al-Shrafi said.
“We ask that the international community continue to pressure their governments, to ask for dignity and a free life for us.”
Joe Catron is a US activist in Gaza, Palestine. He co-edited The Prisoners’ Diaries: Palestinian Voices from the Israeli Gulag, an anthology of accounts by detainees freed in the 2011 prisoner exchange. He blogs at joecatron.wordpress.com and tweets @jncatron.
