The Israeli occupation forces (IOF) kidnaped on Tuesday morning four Palestinian fishermen during their presence off the northern coast of the besieged Gaza Strip.
The detained fishermen were identified as Mohamed al-Sultan Kamal al-Sultan Mohamed al-Sultan and Sharif al-Attar.
According to the fishermen syndicate in Gaza the fishermen were aboard two small fishing boats off the shore of as-Sudaniya area in northern Gaza when a gunboat intercepted them.
The IOF forced the fishermen to take off their clothes before rounding them up and confiscating their boats.
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.
Under the 1993 Oslo accords Palestinian fishermen are permitted to fish up to 20 nautical miles off the coast of Gaza but since then Israel has kept reducing the fishing area gradually to a limit between six to three nautical miles as part of its blockade on Gaza.
Fishermen and human rights groups also say that since the 2008-09 war in Gaza the Israeli army has been regularly enforcing a limit even closer to the shore.
