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<font size=3 color="#191919">Gaza fishermen: "We are ready to
work" <br>
Report, <i>PCHR,</i> 7 February 2008 <br>
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<img src="http://electronicintifada.net/artman2/uploads/2/080207-pchr-gaza-fish.jpg" width=483 height=299 alt="[]">
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Fish are displayed in a Gaza market, October 2007. (Hatem
Omar/<a href="http://www.maanimages.com/">MaanImages</a>) <br><br>
"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."<br><br>
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.<br><br>
"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.<br><br>
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.<br><br>
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.<br><br>
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."<br><br>
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."<br><br>
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.<br><br>
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."<br><br>
<i>This report is part of the <a href="http://pchrgaza.ps/">Palestinian
Centre for Human Rights'</a> Narratives Under Siege series.</i> <br><br>
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