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href="https://electronicintifada.net/content/last-boat-maker-gaza/29576">https://electronicintifada.net/content/last-boat-maker-gaza/29576</a></font>
<h1 class="reader-title">The last boat maker in Gaza</h1>
<p class="node__submitted">
<span class="field field-author"><a
href="https://electronicintifada.net/people/sarah-algherbawi">Sarah
Algherbawi</a></span> <span class="field field-publisher">-</span>
<span class="field field-publication-date"><span
class="date-display-single"
content="2020-02-17T14:05:00+00:00">17 February 2020</span></span>
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<figure id="file-89296"><source media="(min-width:
72rem)"><img
src="https://electronicintifada.net/sites/default/files/styles/original_800w/public/2020-02/dsc_2796.jpg?itok=SlQY7eux×tamp=1581949788"
alt="" title=""><figcaption>
<p>Jamil al-Najjar (left) is being trained in how to
make boats by his father Abdullah (not pictured). </p>
<small>
<span>The Electronic Intifada</span></small></figcaption></figure>
<p>Abdullah al-Najjar is the last boat maker in Gaza.</p>
<p>Fully aware that he plies a vanishing trade,
Abdullah, 61, is nonetheless trying to keep it alive
in a time-honored way. He is training his son Jamil,
25, so that his skills can be handed on to the next
generation.</p>
<p>Abdullah himself began learning how to build boats
when he was in his early teens. He was taught how to
do so by an uncle.</p>
<p>“Boat making is almost nonexistent in Gaza today,”
said Abdullah. “That is because of the high costs
involved, the fact that raw materials are scarce and
the restrictions placed on fishers.”</p>
<p>Gaza’s maritime traditions have deep roots.</p>
<p>In ancient times, a Greek port known as Antidon was <a
href="http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/middle_east/4365440.stm/">established</a>
near present-day Gaza City. Fishing – particularly for
tuna, sardines, shrimp and squid – has long been a key
source of livelihood for Palestinians living along the
coast.</p>
<p>Despite surviving for so long, the traditions are now
at grave risk because of Israel’s policies.</p>
<p>The Oslo accords – signed between Israel and the
Palestine Liberation Organization during the 1990s –
allowed Gaza’s fishers to work in a <a
href="https://www.ochaopt.org/sites/default/files/ocha_opt_gaza_fishermen_case_study_2013_07_11_english.pdf">zone</a>
that stretched for 20 nautical miles. In reality,
Israel has <a
href="https://electronicintifada.net/blogs/maureen-clare-murphy/israel-returns-body-gaza-boy-killed-april">never
allowed</a> fishers to venture beyond 15 miles of
the coast.</p>
<p>Since the beginning of the second intifada in 2000
Israel has reduced the size of the zone repeatedly.
The effect has been a sharp fall in the number of
Gaza’s fishers – from approximately 10,000 in 2000 to
just 3,500 in 2013.</p>
<p>Today Gaza has about <a
href="http://mezan.org/uploads/files/15785746361527.pdf">3,700
fishers</a>, only 2,000 of whom go out to sea on a
daily basis.</p>
<h2>Under attack</h2>
<p>The size of the zone in which fishing is permitted
has continued to fluctuate. Israel <a
href="https://electronicintifada.net/blogs/maureen-clare-murphy/israel-shot-gaza-fishers-347-times-20194">introduced</a>
20 changes to its demarcation in 2019 alone.</p>
<p>Earlier this month, the Israeli military announced
that it was once again <a
href="https://electronicintifada.net/blogs/maureen-clare-murphy/israel-kills-four-palestinians-west-bank-0">reducing</a>
the size of the zone. No fishers are allowed to go
beyond 10 nautical miles of the coast; in areas south
of Gaza’s port, the zone is only six nautical miles.</p>
<p>Israel stated that the reduction was imposed because
rockets were being fired and incendiary balloons were
being flown from Gaza. Yet Israel did not produce any
evidence linking fishers to such actions.</p>
<p>The restrictions on fishers <a
href="https://gisha.org/updates/10948">constitute</a>
collective punishment, which is illegal under
international law.</p>
<p>Fishers have also been repeatedly attacked. The UN
monitoring group OCHA has <a
href="https://www.ochaopt.org/poc/10-23-december-2019">reported</a>
that during a two-week period in December, Israel
opened fire on fishers off Gaza’s coast at least seven
times, sinking one boat.</p>
<figure id="file-89301"><source media="(min-width:
72rem)"><img
src="https://electronicintifada.net/sites/default/files/styles/original_800w/public/2020-02/dsc_7688.jpg?itok=g3sarvV4×tamp=1581949788"
alt="" title=""><figcaption>
<p>Abdullah al-Najjar (left) has worked more on
mending boats than on making new ones in recent
times. </p>
<small>
<span>Abed Zagout</span>
<span>The Electronic Intifada</span></small></figcaption></figure>
<p>Throughout his career, Abdullah al-Najjar has made
around 30 trawlers. Such vessels are 17.5 meters long,
5.5 meters wide and 2.5 meters in height.</p>
<p>They can command a price of $70,000 each.</p>
<p>Abdullah’s business has nearly collapsed since
Israel’s blockade on Gaza was severely tightened in
2007. He has made just two boats in the past 13 years;
one of them was for use by his own sons.</p>
<p>“Fishers have stopped buying new boats,” he said.
“And they can only mend their old boats when they get
help from charities.”</p>
<p>Despite all these difficulties, “I have insisted on
teaching my son how to make boats,” Abdullah added.</p>
<figure id="file-89306"><source media="(min-width:
72rem)"><img
src="https://electronicintifada.net/sites/default/files/styles/original_800w/public/2020-02/dsc_2809.jpg?itok=iHliG-hj×tamp=1581949788"
alt="" title=""><figcaption>
<p>Jamil al-Najjar (at steering wheel) has only made
one boat so far. </p>
<small>
<span>Abed Zagout</span>
<span>The Electronic Intifada</span></small></figcaption></figure>
<p>Of his 13 children, he chose Jamil as the inheritor
of his skills.</p>
<p>“Jamil is so talented,” said Abdullah. “He reminds me
of myself when I was young.”</p>
<p>“I need experience,” said Jamil. “So far, I’ve only
been able to make one boat with my father. I need more
practice.”</p>
<h2>“Graveyard for boats”</h2>
<p>Israel’s tightened siege of Gaza – now in its 14th
year – has placed major obstacles in their way.</p>
<p>Israel has prevented a large number of goods from
entering Gaza. As a result, vital components of and
equipment for fishing vessels – such as nets,
fiberglass, electric motors and steel ropes – are hard
to obtain.</p>
<p>The shortages of materials and the generally dire
economic situation in Gaza have also meant that Gaza’s
fishers cannot carry out much-needed repairs on their
boats.</p>
<p>Zakaria Baker from the Union of Agricultural Work
Committees – which represents both farmers and fishers
in Gaza – estimates that there are 300 boats that will
not be seaworthy until they are mended.</p>
<p>“We keep them in a place that we call the ‘graveyard
for boats,’” Baker said.</p>
<p>Israel has frequently confiscated the boats of Gaza’s
fishers.</p>
<p>In 2016, Abdulmuti al-Habil’s trawler was attacked
and seized by the Israeli navy. After a lawsuit was <a
href="https://gisha.org/updates/10593">filed</a> in
Israel’s high court, his boat was eventually given
back to him last year.</p>
<p>He went to collect the boat at Kerem Shalom, a
military checkpoint between Israel and Gaza.</p>
<p>The court ordered, too, the release of 65 boats which
had been seized from other fishers. They have been
returned but often without engines and without
equipment that was onboard at the time they were
confiscated.</p>
<p>“My heart leaped with joy when they told me my boat
was being released,” said al-Habil, who heads
al-Tawfiq, a fisheries cooperative. “But my happiness
didn’t last long. I was shocked when I saw my boat. It
was almost destroyed.”</p>
<p>Israel had badly damaged the boat with its gunfire.</p>
<p>Al-Habil contacted Abdullah al-Najjar, who examined
the boat. Mending it would cost $50,000, Abdullah
calculated.</p>
<p>Al-Habil agreed to that price and received the
repaired boat two months later. Both Nabil and
Abdullah worked on repairing it.</p>
<p>Trawlers are not the only fishing vessels used in
Gaza. Numerous fishers have gone to sea in a small
boat known as the <em>hassaka</em>.</p>
<p>Gaza has three workshops for producing these boats,
yet none of them is functioning at the moment.</p>
<p>The shortages of materials – especially fiberglass –
has made the cost of production and, as a consequence,
the retail price more expensive. Fishers would need
$8,500 to buy a new <em>hassaka</em> in Gaza, a price
that most of them cannot afford.</p>
<p>“The demand for <em>hassakas</em> is very weak,”
said Mufeed Jarbou, who has made these boats for the
past three decades. “Over the past four years, we have
almost stopped producing them.”</p>
<p><em>Sarah Algherbawi is a freelance writer and
translator from Gaza.</em></p>
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