[News] Gaza fishermen: "We are ready to work"
Anti-Imperialist News
news at freedomarchives.org
Thu Feb 7 11:24:10 EST 2008
Gaza fishermen: "We are ready to work"
Report, PCHR, 7 February 2008
http://electronicintifada.net/v2/article9287.shtml
[]
Fish are displayed in a Gaza market, October 2007. (Hatem
Omar/<http://www.maanimages.com/>MaanImages)
"I've been a fisherman for thirty six years, ever since I was 15
years old. My original village, al-Jura, was famous for its
fishermen. When my father migrated to Gaza in 1948, he came here by boat."
Jamal Mohammed Bassalla is the spokesman of the Rafah Fisherman's
Syndicate in the southern Gaza Strip. The syndicate represents around
450 local fishermen and its headquarters are on the beach just
outside Rafah. This morning, however, Jamal and his crew are sitting
under tarpaulin on the beach, drinking tea around a small driftwood
fire. Conditions at sea are treacherous, and they're waiting for the
weather to improve.
"It takes two or three hours to prepare the boats, but we are on
stand-by every day," says Jamal. "We check the nets, the diesel for
the boat, batteries, our food supplies, the GPS [Global Positioning
System], everything we need in order to work. When the weather
improves we're ready almost immediately." In summer Jamal has a crew
of 18 men and they stay out at sea for up to 24 hours at a time. But
in winter the crew is just six or seven in total. The crews work
together for years, and understand each other intimately.
There are around 3,500 professional fishermen working along the
40-kilometer coastline of the Gaza Strip. Between them, they
economically support almost 40,000 people, including mechanics,
fishmongers and thousands of local fishing families. But the Gaza
fishing industry has been decimated, especially over the last five
years, because of increasingly punitive Israeli restrictions on how
far out to sea the fishermen can sail without being shot or harassed.
The Interim Arrangements on the Gaza Strip and West Bank signed
between Israel and the PLO in 1994-5 did not conform to international
human rights standards, as they restricted the movement of
Palestinian civilians, including the right of Gazan fishermen to fish
off their own coastline. However, the Interim Arrangements did
stipulate that Palestinian fishermen are permitted to fish up to
twenty nautical miles from the Gaza coastline.
But Jamal and his colleagues claim that now they cannot fish more
than 2.5 kilometers offshore without risking being shot. "If we sail
any further out to sea, the Israelis can open fire, destroy our nets
and boats, or force us back to shore," he says. "We've suffered these
restrictions since 2003, and recently they have started using rockets
and helicopters against us as well." The Rafah Syndicate fishermen
say the Israeli gunboats are at sea 24 hours a day, seven days a
week, so they have no chance of venturing any further offshore.
Israel claims the fishing restrictions are part of an overall
security strategy to combat Palestinian gun smuggling and suicide
bombing. But Khalil Shahin, Director of the Economic and Social
Rights Unit at the Palestinian Centre for Human Rights points out
that Israel has never honored the Interim Arrangements. "Israel has
never permitted Gazan fishermen to fish 20 nautical miles from the
shore" he says. "The furthest they have allowed them to fish is 12
nautical miles offshore. That was back in the mid 1990s, when Gazan
fishermen were hauling approximately 3,000 tons of fish a year. But
productivity has plummeted since 2002, because of the increasing
restrictions. Now the fishermen are hauling less than 500 tons of
fish a year. This is an inevitable consequence of Israel continually
violating the Interim Arrangements."
As well as having their boats, nets and other fishing equipment
damaged or destroyed, more than 70 Gazan fishermen were arrested by
Israel last year. Jamal Bassalla and his colleagues are angry and
frustrated that they can no longer earn a sustainable living from
fishing without risking their lives. Another syndicate member,
Abdullah, says he does take risks. "I take my boat four or five
kilometers from the shore -- what choice do I have! Sometimes we
manage, but other times we are actually hauling our catch when they
start firing and force us back. Then we have to abandon the whole haul."
The Rafah fishermen say these restrictions have also affected the
type of fish they catch, making them increasingly reliant on
shallow-water fish like sardines. Many have resorted to using smaller
nets, catching smaller and younger fish in order to increase their
haul. Jamal claims they have no choice because of the Israeli
blockade, but the fishermen have been criticised for severely
over-fishing remaining local stocks. Ironically, the number of
fishermen in Gaza has increased since the mid-'90s, because some of
the thousands of men who used to work in Israel have turned to
professional fishing in order to survive.
The sea is Gaza's greatest natural resource, and for the men at the
Rafah Syndicate, the solution to their crisis is radically simple:
they will settle for their rights as stated in the Interim
Arrangements. "We need open seas," says Jamal. "I am an educated
fisherman: I have a geography degree ... but I returned to fishing
because I love the sea." He has two brothers and six sons. All of
them are fishermen. "We have nets and our boats," he says. "We are
ready to work."
This report is part of the <http://pchrgaza.ps/>Palestinian Centre
for Human Rights' Narratives Under Siege series.
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