Israeli navy Friday opened gunfire towards Palestinian fishermen sailing offshore Beit Lahia town in the northern besieged Gaza Strip, injuring one, the Palestinian news agency WAFA reported.
The Israeli navy fired rubber-coated steel bullets towards fishermen sailing within the designated fishing zone offshore the town, injuring one.
#Breaking| Israeli navy opens fire at a Palestinian fisherman in the sea of #Gaza, causing him a minor injury. #Palestine pic.twitter.com/bs4mdlsZDT
— Quds News Network (@Qudsn_en) August 14, 2020
Fourteen years following the Israeli “disengagement” from Gaza, Israel has not actually disengaged from Gaza; it still maintains control of its land borders, access to the sea and airspace.
Gaza, with a population of 2 million, has been under a hermetic Israeli siege since 2006, when the Palestinian group Hamas won the democratic legislative elections in occupied Palestine. Since then, Israel has carried out numerous bombing campaigns and several major wars, that resulted in the death of thousands of people.
A Palestinian fisherman rows a boat after Israel reduced the area where it permits Palestinians to fish, near the Gaza seaport. (Anadolu Ajansı – 📸 Ali Jadallah) #Gaza pic.twitter.com/qmhcCbBjMQ
— Ali Jadallah (@alijadallah66) August 13, 2020
The Israeli army regularly detains and opens fire on unarmed Palestinian fishermen, shepherds, and farmers along the fence separating besieged Gaza Strip from Israel, if they approach the unilaterally declared buffer zone.
Israeli human rights group B’Tselem recently concluded that Israel’s Gaza closure and “harassment of fishermen” have been “destroying Gaza’s fishing sector,” with 95% of fishermen living below the poverty line.
(Palestine Chronicle, WAFA, Social Media)
