Fishing in Gaza: sometimes illegal, sometimes deadly

The Israeli occupation forces completely closed the Gaza Strip’s fishing zone due to the alleged breach of the security truce on 16 August 2020 [Mohammed Asad/Middle East Monitor]

By Kathryn Shihadah, reposted from MintPress News

The Gaza Strip, just six miles wide, boasts a twenty-five-mile coastline on the Mediterranean Sea. Fishing is a natural industry in such a location and as recently as 2000, was a lucrative business for ten thousand Gazans. Today, only about 3,700 remain in the fishing trade – and about ninety-five percent of these live below the poverty line, with little hope of improvement.

On September 9, Israeli human rights watchdog B’Tselem released a report on the fishing industry in Gaza. It describes the plight-within-a-plight of Palestinians trying to eke out a living during a pandemic and under a hostile Israeli blockade… (full article here)