Damascus-SANA
Despite the vastness of the Gaza sea, the fishermen of the besieged sector live in a narrowness called “a living drenched in blood,” as the Israeli occupation uses various methods of restrictions and humiliation against them and fights them to obtain a livelihood for their children by preventing them from fishing, which is their only source of livelihood.
The continuous targeting of fishermen in the Gaza Strip comes as part of a systematic arbitrary policy in which thousands of fishermen did not feel comfortable, amid their fear of exposure to the occupation’s bullets and shells, which target them daily at sea, destroy their boats, arrest, injure and kill many of them amid the silence of the international community that encouraged the occupation to commit more crimes.
Not only did the occupation continue its violations and target fishermen, estimated to number about five thousand, by firing machine guns from its navy in the sea of the besieged Gaza Strip, but it also sought in the recent period to “legitimize” these violations by issuing a “racist” decision to allow the confiscation of fishermen’s boats and tools within the framework of a long series of criminal practices. throughout the occupied Palestinian territories.
The official of the fishing committees in the Gaza Strip, Zakaria Bakr, said that the aim of the new occupation authorities’ decision is to provide a cover for them to continue their violations of the rights of fishermen and their boats at sea, and to reduce fishing areas, which contradicts international agreements that provide for allowing fishermen to sail 20 nautical miles along the shores of the Gaza Strip. Gaza strip.
The profession of fishing has become the most dangerous in Gaza, where the fisherman leaves his family as if it is the last meeting with them, as he does not know whether his role this time is to arrest or die in the fire of the occupation without warning, which threatens 50 thousand people who live on this profession.
While the head of the International Commission for Supporting the Rights of the Palestinian People, Salah Abdel Assi, confirmed that the new restriction decision is an attempt to give a cover to the inhumane practices of the occupation against Palestinian fishermen.. The captain of the fishermen, Nizar Ayyash, revealed an increase in the frequency of the occupation navy’s attacks against fishermen in the northern and southern areas of the Gaza Strip with the aim of exhausting them. Fishermen and the complexity of their profession, which supports tens of thousands.
While the international community, organizations and bodies concerned with human rights have turned a blind eye to the crimes committed by the Israeli occupation against fishermen in the besieged Gaza Strip, the fishing profession remains in Gaza... a profession surrounded by death and fear.
Fahmy El Shaarawy
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