Two Palestinian fishermen were kidnaped and their fishing boat sustained damage on Saturday morning after the Israeli occupation forces (IOF) attacked them off the northern coast of the besieged Gaza Strip.
Coordinator of the Gaza fishermen union Zakariya Baker said that Israeli gunboats and commando boats carried out a brutal attack on a small fishing boat and opened machinegun fire at it damaging its engine and nets.
Baker added that the IOF kidnaped the sons of Ameen Abu Warda Mohamed and Yousef who were aboard that boat fishing off the shore of Beit Lahia in northern Gaza.
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.
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.
