extract from OCHA report 25-31 March, 2009
Israeli patrol boats opened fire on five
separate occasions targeting Palestinian
fishing boats west of Rafah and Beit
Lahia, forcing the boats to return to the
shore. In one incident, four Palestinian
fishermen were detained. In recent weeks,
the Israeli military has reduced the fishing
range allowed to Palestinian fishermen
from six nautical miles to three,
constraining the ability of fisherman to
catch sardines, which are currently in
season and mainly prevalent in deeper
waters.
Saturday, April 4, 2009
Palestinian fishermen in Gaza stage nonviolent protest as Israeli attacks escalate
04.04.09 - 00:08
Gaza / PNN (thank you to ISM-GAZA) - Yesterday dozens of fishermen from Beit Lahia in the northern Gaza Strip held a nonviolent march towards the coast of the Mediterranean to protest recent Israeli naval attacks.
The demonstration was supported by foreign supporters from the International Solidarity Movement; among them were two who had been abducted by the Israeli naval forces last November.
The Israeli navy has intensely escalated its attacks against Gazan fishermen since the recent onslaught on the Gaza Strip that
intensified for 23 days beginning at the end of December.
In just the past three weeks at least two Palestinian fishermen have been injured by Israeli gunfire, while a whopping16 have been abducted: some of them tortured and later released as reported by the
victims and human rights organizations.
Israeli forces also stole seven fishing boats without return. Several other boats have also reportedly been damaged by Israeli gunfire. Most of the assaulted fishermen are from the Beit Lahia in the northern Strip, some of whom now face even more bleak situations.
They already lost their homes during the recent major Israeli bombings and have now lost their sole means of income in a Gaza already greatly impoverished by the nearly three year long siege on the Strip.
Friday, April 3, 2009
Israeli gunboats wounds a Palestinian fisherman in Gaza
The sources added that a Palestinian was lightly injured as the Israeli gunboats opened fire at a group of fishermen targeting them and their boats along the
Earlier on Thursday, the Israeli navy opened fire against the Palestinian fishermen along the
Israeli Navy shells fishing boats, wounding one fisherman
Friday April 03, 2009 12:06 by Saed Bannoura - IMEMC & Agencies
Palestinian medical sources in the Gaza Strip reported on Friday morning that a Palestinian fisherman was mildly injured when the Israel Navy shelled several fishing boats in the Palestinian territorial waters in Gaza.
Gaza Fishermen, Erica Silverman/IRIN, reprinted from electronicintifada.net
The sources added that at least three boats were hit by navy fire in the Rafah area, in the southern part of the Gaza Strip, and in Al Mawasi, in northern Gaza. Palestinian fishermen have become a frequent target as Israel is barring them from fishing in spite the fact that they are in Palestinian territorial waters.
On Wednesday morning, the Israeli navy attacked a Palestinian fishing boat, kidnapping the four fishermen onboard, and taking over the boat. The fishermen, three brothers and a relative were taken to an unknown destination. They were fishing in Palestinian territorial waters near Rafah, in the southern part of the Gaza Strip.
On Monday a young Palestinian fisherman was shot and seriously wounded when the Israeli navy shelled an area in al-Sudaniyya, north-east of Gaza City.
On Tuesday, March 17, one Palestinian civilian was injured when Israeli naval boats opened fire on residents and fishermen who gathered at the beach near the Beit Lahia town.
Fisherman injured, three boats damaged by Israeli fire on Gaza coast | |||
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Demonstration by the sea
Comrade Andrew with some friends
by Natalie Abou Shakra
Friday, April 3, 2009
The issue with the fishermen in Gaza not being able to cross the 3 mile limit imposed by Apartheid Israel has even restricted the diet that citizens in the Strip consume such that it consists of "50 percent less than average daily protein intake across the Arab world"... after Oslo, was 20 miles, which got down to around 12, then during the siege to 6, and now to 3...
Today a demonstration was organized starting from the Salateen roundabout in Beit Lahya to the Sudaniyya area, where the Beit Lahya port is... which is around half a kilometre's walk... around a 70 individuals were present, including local and international activists..
We never stop singing
It was around 11a.m. when we left the roundabout... we passed tents where familes whose homes were demolished were staying in... eyes look out, smiling faces, children curious...we walked with difficulty on sand for around 200 metres... and we arrived to an empty port, a deserted area... we arrived on the shore, and there were no sailors to greet us, no boats to break the inactivity, just the sound of waves... beautiful, but interrupted by the gunboats ahead...
The tents
The Sudaniyya area is also called the Wa'ha area... it is where Huda Ghalyeh's family was slaughtered during 2006, whilst Lebanon was being bombed (i wrote about her here.) I looked at the place... so forlorn, empty... deserted... occupation! the control of every aspect of your life, not by you!... ahead, i could see the Israeli factories, with smoke coming out of them... how convenient... they also intentionally place polluting factories near the Palestinians...
Moving from Salateen roundabout
We remained on the shore for around two hours... and there were three gunboats ahead passing by... moving around... i felt observed...as if their gazes bore into my body... piercing it with hatred...there were fishermen amongst us, and i passed by two who were elderly men... "look at the stories his face tells", told me a comrade... i asked the old fishermen if i could take a photo of him... he said no... i asked if it was only for me... he said yes... (so, excuse me for not placing it)... i asked him what he thought about the demonstration... he said it will not prevent them from firing at him and killing him tomorrow...he asked me what i thought about the demonstration... i said it is written in notebooks and that a "journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step"... he smiled, but did not seem convinced... as i stood in front of his humble self... a young man came forward to speak to me after i had previously inquired about the drinking water, and usable water resources gaza relied on... the old man eyed Mohammad as he spoke to me... vibrant, full of hopes, dreams, full of wishes... defying occupation, "forbidden dreams"... in that moment, i saw that old man as Mohammad... striked many times by frustration and by the death that the Israeli Apartheid system has inflicted upon his years of living... i look to the right... Huda Ghalyeh's cyring face appears... I look to the sea, the gunboats sailing illegally... I look to my left, houses demolished to the sand, little fishermen chambers deserted... the sky? the sky existed... without F16s this time, or Apaches, or Surveillance planes buzzing... the sea was not blue... it was grey...
Stop Israeli Piracy
I asked a comrade, also a dear friend, once, "should we speak about the cumulative death and the humanitarian(do not confuse this with "humanitarian activist" which I am not!!) aspect?", i told him i disliked "humanitarian" as a category because it creates "pity", and blurs the just-ness and morality of the cause... again, this cause is political before anything else, with a humanitarian crisis resulting (i wrote about my position here in the last paragraph... he said, "our stories are not told to the world, let us convey them at each oppurtunity... these need to be written.."
They are being written... the suffering must be noted down, which is a result to the colonization, occupation, repression of the Zionist entity and the Apartheid system it imposes... every tear, ever drop of blood, every crush to a dream... are your pens still noting down?
Boycott APARTHEID Israel
Natalie
"Alquds Lana" ( Jerusualem is ours)
Thursday, April 2, 2009
Gazan fishermen protesting against Israeli Navy attacks
2/4/2009
Today, dozens of fishermen from the Salateen area in Beit Lahiya in the far north of
ISM Gaza Strip
Photos by Fida Qishta:
https://rcpt.yousendit.com/671293522/a15a76cb69b0c0514d63727fdef61d4c
Wednesday, April 1, 2009
Gaza Sea… Bullet for Each Fish
Shaimaa Mustafa, IOL
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http://www.uruknet.info/?p=m53078&hd=&size=1&l=e http://www.islamonline.net/servlet/Satellite?c=Article_C&cid=1237705786228&pagename=Zone-English-News/NWELayout April 1, 2009 GAZA CITY —Sea has always been Ibrahim Shahada's life. For years he used to join fellow fishermen heading to the shores with the first sun beams. Today, the 50-year old Gazan says the word sea has become a synonym of fear and death. "We are now terribly terrified every time we try to get into the sea," Shahada told IslamOnline.net. "it's not that we fear the rolling sea waves, but the much more dangerous Israeli war machines yearning for a chance to shoot at us." Along with the 40km Gaza seashore, Israeli military ships keep roving to threaten any Palestinian boat that dares to get any deeper into the water. "As soon as we log into the sea, we face a sudden burst of machine gunfire rattling from their military ships," Shahada said. "Many of us opt to get back to the shores." Abu-Lou'ai Shehata, a Palestinian fisherman in his fourth decade, says he escaped the Israel death machines with a miracle. "I survived with a miracle after an Israeli shell hit my boat few days ago," he told IOL. "Shooting fishermen is now a daily routine for Israelis that my family presses me to end my career." Just last week, a Palestinian fisherman was injured when Israeli naval boats opened fire on fishermen who gathered at the beach near the Beit Lahyia town in the central Gaza Strip. Last October, Andrew Muncie, a Scottish human rights activist, has filmed the Israeli navy firing machine guns at unarmed Palestinian fishing boats off the coast of the Gaza Strip. The footage, taken on September 6, showed an Israeli gunboat engaging fishing boats while international observers hold their arms in the air and scream for them to stop firing. During the past 12 months, Israeli naval forces have killed eight Palestinian fishermen. Struggle Not only the Israeli fire that turns fishermen life into a nightmare. There is also the Israeli restrictions and the stifling siege that leaves them struggling to make ends meet. "Even If we managed to escape the Israeli fire, we usually end up with few fishes that barely make up for the price of our boat fuel," Yasser Ramadan, another fisherman, said. "We r lucky if any money was left to bring food to our tables." The blockade Israel imposed on Gaza since 2007 is causing severe shortages of fuel and gas supplies - the backbone of the fishing business. Helpless and desperate, the fishermen are even using cooking oil to run the engines of their boats. Worse still, now after the Israeli 22-day offensive on Gaza which ended last January, fishermen say their boats and fishing gear have been damaged so much that many can't fish any more. "My boat was damaged by the Israel fire. I can not afford to repair it anyway," Shehata says. Under the Oslo Accords, signed in 1993, Palestinian fishermen have the right to sail up to 20 miles from the Gazan coast. After the latest offensive, Israel has reduced this limit, however, to only three miles. Shehata says that the real death for any fisherman is to stay at shores while his livelihood is right in front of him, but inaccessible. "I'm a sailor who can't sail. I'm a fisherman who has not tasted fish for months," he lamented in a sad voice. Shahada, the elderly fisherman, is filled with grief that being caught between Israel's fire and blockade, his longtime profession is sinking. "We used to hunt from 60-70 fish kgs a day. Today, we hardly get 5 kgs. "The good old days has gone." |
Israeli navy opens fire along Gaza shore, no injuries
According to the sources, the Israeli gunboats targeted in the morning a group of fishermen and their boats near the city of
Israeli gunboats fire at Palestinian fishing boats |
| [ 01/04/2009 - 04:47 PM ] |
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GAZA, (PIC)-- Israeli gunboats on Wednesday opened machinegun fire at Palestinian fishing boats off the coasts of Gaza city causing material damage but no casualties were reported. Eyewitnesses said that a number of fishermen who were at sea at time of the incident were forced to head to the shore because of the intensified shooting. The Israeli occupation authority prohibits Palestinian fishing at a distance beyond 3 nautical miles while before the Gaza siege the fishermen were allowed to fish as far as 20 nautical miles. In another development in Gaza, a Palestinian young woman in her twenties died on Wednesday because of severe burns in the lower part of her body, which she suffered over the past week and could not travel abroad for treatment because of the Israeli siege, medical sources reported. They added that with the death of Abir Al-Agha the number of siege victims thus rose to 313. |
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