Mohammed Baker (70) has been fishing for half a
century. He remembers the days when Palestinian fishers could go out to sea
without fear of being attacked, arrested or killed.
first published
at IPS -by Eva Bartlett
The Palestinian Centre for Human Rights (PCHR) reported that fourteen fishers from a single family, stationed just three nautical miles from the coast of the Gaza Strip, were all arrested on Dec 1.
Some fishers were only
two miles off Gaza’s coast when they were attacked with machine gun fire and
arrested by the Israeli Navy. Ranging from the ages of 14 to 52, the majority in
their late teens and early twenties, these fishers hail from some of Gaza’s
poorest families.
According to Mifleh Abu Riyala, a representative of the General Syndicate of
Marine Fishers, the ceasefire has made no difference to Palestinian fishers.
Palestinians are
allowed, under the current Israel-Hamas ceasefire, “to fish six miles out”,
he told IPS, “but the Israeli gunboats still attack us, whether we are six or
three miles out.”
The Oslo
accords granted Palestinian fishers the right to fish twenty nautical miles
out at sea, a right the Israeli navy has unilaterally vetoed, downsizing the
fishing “limits” since the 1990s to a mere three miles, until this past
November’s ceasefire allowed a slight increase, to six nautical miles.
“It is our sea, in order to live we must be able to access it.”
Mohammed Baker (70) has been fishing for half a century. He remembers the days when Gaza’s sea was open to Palestinian fishers, and when there was no fear of being attacked, arrested or killed by the Israeli navy.
Two of his sons, Amar (34) and Omar (21), were among the 14 fishers attacked by Israeli gunboats on Dec 1. The Israeli navy has still not returned their “hassaka” (a small fishing boat).
Like many of Gaza City’s
fishers, the Bakers live in the Beach Camp, one of the
Strip’s most overcrowded refugee camps.
“Israeli gunboats and
smaller zodiacs
surrounded my sons’ hassaka and made them strip naked, jump into the sea, and
swim to one of the Israeli boats,” Mohammed told IPS.
Four days after Amar’s
abduction, Mohammed went to the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC),
whose work includes visiting and monitoring Palestinian prisoners’ conditions in
Israeli
jails and detention centres.
Amar now stands accused of “being part of the Palestinian resistance”, a charge based on his previous job of making coffee and tea for Hamas officers.
“My son was a ‘kitchen
boy’. People who work for the government are still civilians,” Mohammed
stressed, echoing the tenets
of international humanitarian law.
“There is no ceasefire for fishers. We’re ordinary people, we work to earn just 30 or 40 shekels (seven to 10 dollars) per day to feed our families,” Mohammed lamented.
Jamal Baker’s son Khadr was abused and abducted by the
Israeli navy.
Khadr Baker (20) was lucky that he was not killed during an encounter with the Israeli navy on Nov. 28, during which his boat was gunned down as punishment for fishing just over three miles from the Beach Camp coast.
His father, Jamal Baker (50), spoke to IPS about Khadr’s arrest, explaining that Israeli gunboats appeared without warning and began firing at close range on Khadr’s small motorboat.
“The Israelis ordered the four fishers on Khadr’s hassaka to strip and jump into the sea, which is extremely cold this time of year,” Jamal told IPS.
“They made Khadr tread water for half an hour, and kept machine gunning around him,” said Jamal. The hassaka eventually caught fire and exploded, sinking soon after.
“The Israelis took Khadr on their boat, handcuffed him naked, and beat and interrogated him for three hours, accusing him of working with the Palestinian resistance,” the boy’s father told IPS.
Without their boat, the family of ten has no income. “I sold my nets so that we can eat,” Jamal said simply.
PCHR
reported other attacks on fishers that day: in one case, the navy attacked
and abducted five fishers from the al-Hessi family, damaging – and eventually
confiscating – the large fishing trawler they were on. The boat has not yet been
returned.
In February 2009, Rafiq
Abu Riyala, then 23, was shot
in his back – by an Israeli soldier standing less than 20 metres away – with
a dum-dum bullet, which explodes on impact.
The hassaka fisher was only two miles off Gaza’s coast when attacked. One of
two breadwinners in his family, Rafiq Abu Riyala cannot now fish in cold
weather. “The shrapnel bits in my back make it too painful when it is cold out,”
he told IPS.Mahar Abu Amia (40) has sixteen people to provide for. “My wife fishes also,” he told IPS. “But we have no chance: we reach six miles and they shoot, we go only three miles and they shoot. What is this ceasefire? It means nothing for us.”
Israeli naval abductions and shooting at Palestinian fishermen: it’s routine
Israeli Navy Terrorism: Destroying Boats and Lives
Israeli naval abductions and shooting at Palestinian fishermen
one year later, young fisherman still trying to heal
musings from a fishing boat
River to Sea
Uprooted Palestinian 
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