Following Latest Escalation of Violence

Zionist Regime Expands Gaza Fishing Zone

Date: 16 November 2018 - 21:18

News ID: ۵۹۶۸۳

GAZA STRIP (Dispatches) – The Zionist regime’s navy has expanded the Palestinian fishing zone off the northern portion of the Gaza Strip as the latest spate of the regime’s military aggression against the besieged coastal enclave saw 14 people killed and several others injured in 48 hours.
The development came following the latest escalation of violence by the Tel Aviv regime against the coastal enclave in which Israeli airstrikes and shells reduced Palestinian buildings to rubble and sent fireballs and plumes of smoke into the sky.
Nizar Ayyash, secretary of the Gaza fishermen's syndicate, said in a statement that Zionist troops allowed Palestinian fishermen to carry out their fishing work within six nautical miles in northern Gaza and nine nautical miles in southern Gaza.
On Wednesday, Zionist naval forces killed a fisherman after opening fire on a Palestinian fishing boat northwest of the coast of Beit Lahia city, located about five kilometers north of Gaza City.
The Palestine Red Crescent Society said the fishermen, identified as 23-year-old Nawaf Ahmed al-Attar, was taken to hospital in a critical condition, and succumbed to the grave gunshot wounds he had suffered in his abdomen shortly afterwards.
According to Palestinian estimates, roughly 50,000 Gazans earn their living from fishing.
The fishing zone is supposed to extend to 20 nautical miles under the Oslo Accords. The Oslo Accords were signed between the regime and the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) during the early-mid 1990s to resolve the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.
Over the past few years, Zionist troops have carried out more than a hundred attacks on Palestinian boats, arresting dozens of fishermen and confiscating several boats.
The Gaza Strip has been under a blockade by the regime since June 2007. The blockade has caused a decline in the standard of living as well as unprecedented levels of unemployment and unrelenting poverty.
Hamas and other Gaza-based resistance groups announced a ceasefire with Israel in a joint statement on Tuesday evening, saying they would abide by the ceasefire as long as Israel did the same.
"Egypt's efforts have been able to achieve a ceasefire between the resistance and the Zionist enemy,” the statement read.
It added, "The resistance will respect this declaration as long as the Zionist enemy respects it.”
Tensions have been running high near the fence separating the Gaza Strip from the occupied territories ever since anti-occupation protest rallies began in the coastal enclave on March 30. More than 230 Palestinians have been killed by Israeli forces. Nearly 23,000 Palestinians have also sustained injuries.