Israel’s Destruction of the Port of Gaza and Palestinian Fishing Vessels

<p>For centuries, fishing has played a significant part in the Palestinian economy, culture, and cuisine. Prior to the Nakba of 1948, the Mediterranean Sea provided around 80% of the total fish produce in Palestine, making the fisheries sector a key source of food and employment in Palestinian villages. In 1948, when Zionist paramilitary organisations forcefully displaced hundreds of thousands of Palestinians from fishing towns and villages along the Mediterranean, many fishermen fled to Gaza in the south. Today, the majority of the fishermen in Gaza are descendants of refugees from the Palestinian fishing villages that were ethnically cleansed in 1948.</p> <p>Israel has been imposing restrictions on Palestinian access to and use of the sea since the 1990s. Since the 1995 Oslo II Accord, the fishing limit (the distance from shore within which fishing is permitted) has been restricted to 20 nautical miles from the coastline. In 2009, the Port of Gaza came under siege when Israel imposed a strict naval blockade on Gaza, under which it located its naval forces close to Gaza’s shores. Within the area of the blockade, Israel imposed additional restrictions on fishing and travel. To this day, such restrictions are arbitrarily adjusted by the Israeli navy. The fishing limit, for example, may range from zero nautical miles up to a maximum of fifteen during less restrictive periods, effectively suffocating Gaza’s historic fishing industry.</p> <p>While the permitted fishing limit has fluctuated since the Oslo II Accord, the intensification of Israeli fishing restrictions and military siege nevertheless resulted in repeated and continuous attacks on Palestinian fishermen working within the Israeli-restricted fishing limit.</p> <p>Palestinian fishermen have regularly reported being fired on by the Israeli Navy while fishing, killing numerous fishermen throughout the years, including other attacks such as arbitrary violent arrests, confiscation, destruction of their fishing vessels, and the destruction of their fishing equipment, among other devastating practices.</p>