7th January 2014 | International Solidarity Movement, Charlie Andreasson | Gaza, Occupied Palestine
(Photo by Charlie Andreasson)
On Saturday, 4th January, the Israeli navby shot at five fishermen and their boat, a hasaka, three nautical miles from the shore of Gaza, well within the highly-restricted part of Palestine waters in which the occupation forces officially allow them to fish. Despite damage to the boat, and water that flooded it, Majed Baker, age 55, and his four relatives managed to return to port and get the boat onto shore. A total of nine bullet holes were counted, some below the waterline.
Previously, according to the Palestinian Ministry of Information in Gaza, the Israeli military had restricted waters in the north. It thereby expanded the nautical “buffer zone” by Israeli waters through military force, and without declaring its intentions in advance. Nor has it made any statement in retrospect. The restriction of the fishing waters in the north is confirmed by the affected fishermen. The same pattern can be discerned in the rest of the increasingly narrowed zone. According to Zakaria Baker, coordinator of the Union of Agricultural Workers Committees (UAWC)’s fishermen’s committee, all boats that tried to sail further than four miles from the coast have been attacked since the beginning of the year, and the “buffer zone” in the south, by Egyptian waters, has been curtailed drastically. This means boats in Rafah must sail north along the coast for some distance before they can venture into fishing grounds.
These restrictions affect the fishing industry severely, especially now, during the peak season. As a result of Israeli aggression, the total catch has fallen by 42% since 2000, and the number of registered fishermen has declined from about 5,000 in the 1980s to less than 3,000 today, according to the United Nations’ Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs. Attacks and shootings against Palestinian fishermen, sometimes resulting in fatal and other injuries, arrests and seizures of boats, and destruction of fishing gear, are common and documented by the Palestinian Center for Human Rights. Since neither the Palestinian fishing industry nor fishermen themselves endanger the State of Israel, these abuses cannot be understood as anything other than collective punishment, which violates the fourth Geneva Convention, Article 33.
Behind all the numbers and statistics lurk people. When an occupying power, in this case Israel, is allowed to continue to violate international conventions by the world community, it allows other nations to do the same. This erosion of established conventions is a threat to the people they are meant to protect, and can eventually affect relations between states. The attack on the five fishermen is therefore a concern for the entire international community, and not an internal matter between Israel and those living under its occupation.
Small fishing boats, or hasakat, moored in the Gaza seaport. (Photo by Charlie Andreasson)
On 17 December, Palestinian fishermen and their supporters erected a tent — a traditional venue for protest, as well as celebration and mourning — inside the Gaza seaport.
“It was to highlight the situation, the crimes of the Israelis against fishermen here,” said Amjad al-Shrafi, treasurer of the General Union of Fishermen. “We wanted to send a message about the blockade against the fishermen and how we cannot fish freely.”
The protest, organized under the title Free the Holy Land Sea, ended two days later with the delivery of a letter to the nearby office of the United Nations Special Coordinator for the Middle East Peace Process, demanding international protection for fishermen.
Over three days, hundreds of well-wishers visited a crowded tent decorated with banners and posters supporting fishermen. The organizations represented on its walls ranged from human rights centers to prisoner support groups.
Under fire
“One of our main goals was to push governments around the world to force Israel to give fishermen free lives and let us sail without any limits,” al-Shrafi said. “It’s our right to sail freely in our waters.”
“Another was to pressure the Israeli forces to release the boats and fishermen they have captured.”
Palestinian fishermen in coastal waters off the Gaza Strip frequently come under fire byIsraeli naval forces, which target their boats on both sides of a boundary imposed by Israel.
Through its subsidiary, HP Israel, the US corporation won a contract to run the Israeli navy’s computer and communications network in August 2006 (“HP Israel wins navy IT outsourcing contract,” Globes, 14 August 2006).
The fishing area permitted by Israel, which doubled in size as part of the ceasefire agreement ending eight days of Israeli attacks on the Gaza Strip and retaliatory fire by Palestinian resistance groups in November 2012, now officially reaches six nautical miles from the shore.
But fishermen say the Israeli navy often shoots at them and sometimes captures them and their boats well within the zone it ostensibly allows them.
Captured
Fishermen and supporters hold posters with images of colleagues captured by Israeli forces, in Gaza City on 19 December 2013. (Photo by Joe Catron)
“We were far from the prohibited zone, 500 meters away,” said Saddam Abu Warda, a 23-year-old fisherman whom the Israeli navy captured along with his 18-year-old brother Mahmoud around 9am on 10 November.
“They were shouting, ‘You must get out of here in five minutes.’ We had to cut the net to pull it out of the water. Then they started to fire bullets close to our hasaka [small boat]. As they came close to us, their boat looked like a big building with lights.”
The Abu Wardas’ small boat had no engine. “We tried to escape by paddling quickly,” Saddam Abu Warda said. “They forced us to take off our clothes and raise our hands. They were firing bullets in the air and in front of our hasaka. One soldier was shouting, ‘You have to leave your hasaka and get in the water.’ I was shocked. I couldn’t move. I didn’t know why.”
Finally, gunfire forced the brothers into the cold water. “They didn’t stop firing bullets over our heads,” Abu Warda said. “I was far from my brother. He started shouting, saying, ‘I am injured.’ He wasn’t able to keep swimming. I swam back to my brother to try and save him. His blood was [spilling] in the water. Then two small boats came close to us. They pulled my brother from the water. They didn’t take me.”
When Abu Warda reached the Israeli gunship, he lost consciousness after soldiers bound, hooded and kicked him. He awoke in a detention facility in Ashdod, a port in present-day Israel beside his brother Mahmoud, whose right abdomen was stitched by military physicians. The brothers said that Israeli bullets caused the wound.
During an interrogation after he awoke, an Israeli soldier tried to convince him otherwise. “I told him, ‘Three of your gunboats were around us. They were firing bullets. My brother’s blood was everywhere in the water. He was injured by your soldiers.’”
After a lengthy interrogation that continued both in Ashdod port and after their transfer to a detention center by the Erez crossing between Gaza and present-day Israel, Israeli forces released the Abu Wardas into the northern Gaza town of Beit Hanoun around 10pm — 13 hours after their capture. Their boat and its equipment remained behind.
“We have three hasakas in the Ashdod port,” Abu Warda said of his family’s prior losses to the Israeli navy.
Severe damage
The Abu Wardas’ experiences echo many more documented in a new report by thePalestinian Centre for Human Rights (PCHR). The PCHR, which supported the Free the Holy Land Sea campaign, is translating the document — already published in Arabic — into English.
Over four years, from 1 September 2009 through 31 August 2013, the Israeli navy killed two fishermen, wounded 24, and captured 147, according to the report. The navy also seized 45 boats and destroyed or damaged 113 more.
The report also records the losses incurred by about thirty bombings of four fishing ports during Israel’s November 2012 attacks on the Gaza Strip, including damages to an additional 80 boats and destruction of a health clinic and a youth center used by fishermen.
“There was severe damage to different fishing facilities during the military offensive,” said Khalil Shaheen, director of PCHR’s economic and social rights unit.” At the ports in Gaza City, Middle Area, Khan Younis and Rafah, different facilities were targeted and destroyed.”
“The report also documents the impact of the total damage to fishermen and the fishing sector,” Shaheen added. “One of the main impacts was the loss of 85 percent of income in the fishing sector, as the result of access restrictions and the naval blockade.”
Casualties have continued to mount in the four months since the period covered by the report ended. The PCHR publishes regular reports on human rights abuses in Gaza. These reports indicate that Israel has shot at fishermen at least 37 times since September, as well as seizing six boats.
“I would like to thank all the solidarity campaigns who were involved in this action and show solidarity with Palestinian fishermen,” al-Shrafi said.
“We ask that the international community continue to pressure their governments, to ask for dignity and a free life for us.”
23rd December 2013 | International Solidarity Movement, Charlie Andreasson | Gaza, Occupied Palestine
Hundreds greet freed detainees at midnight rally in northern Gaza Strip (Photo by Charlie Andreasson)
You stand below a dam because you have discovered cracks where water leaks out. You try to seal them with your bare hands, but they are not enough. The pressure is too high, and the cracks too large. And you scream for help, to let people know what is happening, stop the pressure from the inside before the disaster happens. But no one listens to your warning, and no one seems to want to see the water that wells between your fingers. Some even claim you are exaggerating. And you stand there,not daring to move your hands, wondering how long you will be able to hold back the pressure, how long you can keep calling before your voice fails. This is the metaphor that best describes the frustration activists here feel from time to time, a frustration we have to deal with because it cannot pass in dejection.
To be an activist here is not just to go with farmers into the “buffer zone,” or out to sea with fishermen, more or less as human shields: to try to seal the cracks with your hands, if I am allowed to continue using the metaphor as an explanatory model. Far more time is spent interviewing victims, gathering information, going to demonstrations and writing articles, to call for help and draw attention to what is happening. And it is mainly during the search for information that you unwittingly also look for something to show that a change is afoot. One’s eyes skim through title after title, then suddenly it’s there, the article that makes you pause. Standing below the dam, you notice a change among those high above you. Maybe now something’s finally starting to happen. And you feel relief and joy, and share the news with all the activists you meet.
Most recently, on 8th December, Dutch Prime Minister Mark Rutte had planned to inaugurate a container scanner at the Kerem Shalom checkpoint, but called off the whole thing when it became apparent that the scanner would not, contrary to Rutte’s assumptions, facilitate and thereby increase the movement of goods between the Gaza Strip and the West Bank. Israel is determined to keep these two parts of Palestine separated from each other.
On the same trip, Dutch Foreign Minister Frans Timmermans refused to accept an Israeli military escort in the 1967-occupied territories, instead canceling his planned visit to Hebron’s older neighborhoods. Other foreign ministers have recently visited them without military escorts, and Timmermans did not accept the new conditions to avoid creating a precedent.
Netherlands, you are great among activists here now. Upright, a standard-bearer for human rights, the defender of the Geneva Conventions. Only days later, we read that the Dutch water company Viten ended a partnership with Israeli water company Mekorot. Also on Rutte’s trip was Dutch Minister of Trade Lilianne Ploumen, whose visit to Mekorot the Israelis abruptly canceled. Perhaps this was because Dutch media had revealed that the same company was denying Palestinians water, but we may never know.
Netherlands, you are a light in the darkness, and may other nations follow that light. You demonstrate that there is a political space to maneuver to bring about a change. And now Romania denies its citizens work in Israeli settlements in 1967-occupied territory. Salvation is close, you can stop shouting now, and soon you will no longer need to keep your hands over the cracks.
But we are deceiving ourselves, and maybe we need to do it to not be dejected. For while we focus on the good news, we shut our eyes, at least temporarily, to the bad, which is much more plentiful, and more serious in nature. As the UK develops a new type of drone with Israel, and Italy expands its cooperation on several levels with the aforementioned occupying power, that members of the Knesset already have started congratulating each other for the peace talks that do not seem to lead anywhere … the list is grows longer every day. And when we go out on the streets of Palestine, we see that nothing has improved. Do average people here know the Netherlands stands up for them? Do they react the same way we do to the news??
People here are hardened. They believe in a change only when they see it. They’ve had enough empty promises to stop dreaming. And that’s why they pay tribute to every Palestinian who returns from an Israeli prison, no matter what he or she has done – armed resistance, political activity, being in the wrong place at the wrong time – because this person tried, in a concrete way, to change the situation. That’s all that counts after the betrayal of all who walk above, without giving a thought to the cracks you frantically try to seal. They are about to be drowned further downstream from the dam. And we continue to cry out for help.
23rd December 2013 | International Solidarity Movement, Rosa Schiano | Gaza, Occupied Palestine
Fisherman and their boats in the Gaza seaport. (Photo by Rosa Schiano)
“Free the Holy Land sea” was a three-day protest by fishermen in Gaza which began on Tuesday, 17th November. The fishermen, supported by the Palestinian Center for Human Rights and al-Mezan Center for Human Rights, set up a tent at the Gaza seaport in which photographs showing Israeli violations were exhibited, along with banners in solidarity with the fishermen.
In the tent were fishermen, international and Palestinian activists for the rights of fishermen and political prisoners, and representatives of human rights centers. Politicians came to give their greetings and express solidarity with the fishermen.
“Since last year, massive attacks against Palestinian fishermen have become a practice of the Israeli naval forces,” said Khalil Shaheen, director of the economics and social rights unit at the Palestinian Centre for Human Rights. “The attack on the fundamental rights of the fishermen, their livelihoods, makes the lives of thousands of fishermen impossible. From September 2009 until the current day, two Palestinian fishermen have been killed, 24 injured, at least 150 arrested, 49 boats seized by the Israeli forces, and at least 120 boats destroyed partially or totally, including during the last military operation, Pillar of Defense, in which harbors were also bombed.”
“Palestinian fishermen are losing 85% of their annual income due to the restrictions in the maritime area and the naval blockade,” Shaheen added. “I think it’s very important to send a clear message in support of the fishermen. For Christmas and the New Year, Palestinian fishermen ask their friends and brothers in the rest of the world to convince the Israeli occupation to end the illegal blockade in Gaza, and to free the Holy Land sea, to grant them their rights.”
Salim al-Faseh. (Photo by Rosa Schiano)
Among the fishermen present at the event, Salim al-Faseh, age 57, was wounded by Israeli military fire in September while fishing on a trawler about six miles offshore. The bullets severed the little finger of his right hand and destroyed part of the internal tissue. Salim will have to wait for his surgery in February, when an internal fixator will be removed, to know if he can use his fingers again. “God willing, this event will help the fishermen,” al-Faseh said.
“The fishing sector is the sector that suffers the most in Gaza,” he added. “We suffer from lack of fuel, the limits imposed on the fishing area, the unsuitable materials. Everything is making the profession of fishing die.”
The port was calm under a blue sky. After the raging storm and incessant rain that flooded roads and houses in the Gaza Strip, the sun was shining again. Some fishermen were harvesting small fish from their nets. Others sat under the sun and spoke of their daily problems, especially the economic difficulties faced by Gaza fishermen.
The Israeli blockade on the Gaza Strip affects Palestinians’ economic and social conditions. More than 75,000 people depend on the fishing industry as the main source of their livelihood.
Israel has progressively restricted Palestinian fishermen’s access to the sea. The 20 nautical miles established under the Gaza-Jericho Agreement between Israel and the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) in 1994 were reduced to 12 miles in the Bertini Agreement of 2002. In 2006, the area Israel allowed for fishing was reduced to six nautical miles from the coast. After its “Operation Cast Lead” military offensive (December 2008 – January 2009) Israel imposed a limit of three nautical miles from the coast, preventing Palestinians from accessing 85% of the water to which they are entitled under the Gaza-Jericho Agreement.
Under the ceasefire agreement by Israel and the Palestinian resistance after the Israeli “Operation Pillar of Defense” military offensive (November 2012), Israel agreed that Palestinian fishermen could again sail six nautical miles from the coast. Despite these agreements, the Israeli navy has not stopped its attacks on fishermen, even within this limit. In March 2013, Israel once again imposed a limit of three nautical miles from the coast. On 22 May, Israeli military authorities announced a decision to restore the limit to six nautical miles.
In the month of November alone, PCHR reports 12 attacks. During one, gunfire injured a fisherman. Overall six fishermen were arrested and six boats confiscated. These attacks constitute a violation of the international humanitarian law.
At the end of the event, fishermen, along with human rights organizations, submitted a letter to the United Nations Special Coordinator for the Middle East Peace Process office in Gaza City.
17th December 2013 | International Solidarity Movement, Rosa Schiano | Gaza, Occupied Palestine
(Photo by Rosa Schiano)
On Sunday, 15th December, a young Palestinian was injured by Israeli gunfire in Beit Lahia in the northern Gaza Strip.
Mohammed el-Shanbary, age 17, was harvesting potatoes. “I went to work at 9 am,” el-Shanbary said. “After about 30 minutes, the soldiers started shooting.”
He was working with the owner of the land and another person about 500 meters from the wall that separates the Gaza Strip from territory occupied by Israel in 1948.
El-Shanbary and his father Rafiq think the bullets were fired from control towers situated along the separation barrier, inside of which there are automatic machine guns.
A bullet wounded El-Shanbary in his left shinbone. After he fainted, the landowner called his father and asked him to summon an ambulance. The ambulance took him to Kamal Odwan hospital.
The bullet entered and exited, causing a fracture. El-Shanbary would have surgery 30 minutes after our visit. The doctor said they would insert a tibial fixation.
El-Shanbary started working in the area one month ago. The work depends on the harvest season.
His father does not have a stable job, leaving el-Shanbary and his 21-year-old brother to work to support a family of ten.
He can earn from 25 to 40 shekels per day, depending on how many crates of potatoes he collects. For each crate, he receives two shekels.
“Some time ago, they were shooting just to scare us, not directly at our bodies,” el-Shanbary said.
“We work just to buy bread for our family, and they hit us,” his father Rafiq added.
The ceasefire of 21st November 2012 established that Israeli occupation forces should “refrain from hitting residents in areas along the border” and “cease hostilities in the Gaza Strip by land, by sea and by air, including raids and targeted killings.”
However, Israeli military attacks by land and sea followed from the day after the ceasefire, and Israeli warplanes fly constantly over the Gaza Strip. Seven civilians have been killed by Israeli occupation forces since the end of their last major offensive, “Operation Pillar of Defense,” and more than 130 have been wounded.
These attacks on the Gaza Strip continue amid international silence.
