The Israeli occupation forces (IOF) attacked last night Palestinian fishermen and confiscated two fishing boats off the northern coast of the besieged Gaza Strip.
“Last night was difficult for Palestinian fishermen especially in the northern Gaza Strip after they were exposed to more than one attack from Israeli gunboats which continued into the dawn hours” Zakariya Bakr coordinator of the fishermen committees in Gaza said in press remarks on Wednesday.
Bakr added that the Israeli gunboats fired bullets and projectiles at fishing boats in overnight and dawn attacks that happened in stages with the aim of completely emptying the northern waters of Gaza sea of fishermen.
He pointed out that the IOF confiscated two fishing boats belonging to fishermen Ra’fat Bakr and Tayseer Nuri and failed to seize another one.
No one was reportedly hurt in the Israeli attacks.
Israeli naval forces and their gunboats are around Gaza fishermen almost every day harassing them shooting at them damaging their boats and making arrests. Sometimes fishermen are injured or killed during gunfire attacks.
Such Israeli restrictions in Gaza’s territorial waters curtail fishermen’s ability to fish and make a living to support their families.
Israel’s decades of control over Gaza’s territorial waters have had an adverse impact on the lives and livelihoods of fishermen their families and others in the fishing sector and on the economy as a whole.
In another incident the IOF carried out on Wednesday morning a small-scale incursion into the east of Khan Yunis City south of Gaza amid intensive gunfire.
According to local sources a number of armored bulldozers escorted by Merkava tanks advanced from a military post into a border agricultural area in the east of al-Fakhari area in Khan Yunis.
The heavy machinery embarked on leveling and digging swaths of cultivated land and making mounds of dirt in the area.
Such Israeli military incursions on the Gaza border always cause considerable damage to fields and crops and prevent farmers from working their lands.
