EMBOLDENED BY TRUMP, ISRAEL SLASHES FISHING AREA FOR PALESTINIAN FISHERMEN

Israel has slashed the area that Palestinian fishermen can fish off the coast of Gaza, from 9 miles to 6 miles.

This is yet another attack on Palestine which is expected to become uninhabitable by 2020. Reducing food supply is a sure way of ethnic cleansing.

The Palestinian Center for Human Rights (PCHR) condemned the Israeli authorities’ decision to decrease the fishing area to 6 nautical miles off the area from the Gaza Valley to Rafah City in the south. According to the Israeli decision, the Palestinian fishermen in the Gaza Strip are banned from sailing and fishing freely and denied them access to the areas where fish breed.

Nizar ‘Ayash, Head of the General Union of Fishing Workers in the Gaza Strip, said to PCHR’s fieldworker that on Monday, 11 December 2017, the Israeli authorities informed the Palestinian Civil Affairs Authority of decreasing the fishing area to 6 nautical miles from the Gaza Valley to Rafah City in the south. This decision will enter into force at 15:00 on Tuesday, 12 December 2017, restricting fishermen and their movement in the Gaza Waters. It should be mentioned that the Israeli authorities previously allowed the Palestinian fishermen to sail up to 9 nautical miles in the above-mentioned area on 03 May 2017.

PCHR emphasized that the Israeli decision against Palestinian fishermen is in violation of the right to work according to Article 6 of the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights.

[source : Israeli decreases Gaza fishing area to six nautical miles, Palestine News Network, http://english.pnn.ps/2017/12/12/israeli-decreases-gaza-fishing-area-to-six-nautical-miles/, 12th December 2017]