Middle East Monitor / June 16, 2022
Three Palestinian fishermen were injured this morning after Israeli naval boats fired at them off the coast of the Gaza Strip.
Captain Nizar Ayyash told the media that fisherman Nasr Ali Bakr was seriously injured, while fishermen Muhammad Jaber Bakr and Muhammad Fakhri Bakr were hit by rubber coated bullets after the occupation’s boats attacking their fishing boat while they were working at sea. They were taken to the hospital for treatment.
Rights activist Zakaria Bakr said the fishermen were targeted with machine guns even though they were working within the six mile region permitted under the occupation’s siege.
According to the Palestinian Fishermen’s Association in Gaza, there are some 4,000 fishermen working in Gaza’s fishing sector, who are looking after about 50,000 dependents.
The profession has been deemed dangerous by rights organizations due to Israel’s harassment of fishermen at sea.
In 2020, Israeli occupation forces attacked Palestinian fishermen off the coast of the Gaza Strip on at least 320 occasions, the Union of Agricultural Work Committees (UAWC) reported, 63 more attacks than the previous year. Israel also closed the fishing area altogether for 16 days in August.
