Israeli military boats and border forces early Sunday morning opened machine gunfire on Palestinian fishermen and farmers offshore of the northern Gaza Strip and to the south of the Strip, respectively, according to WAFA correspondence.No injuries were reported among fishermen, who were sailing within the six-nautical-miles allowed fishing zone – falls drastically short of the twenty nautical miles allocated to Palestinian fishermen in the 1993 Oslo Accords – offshore the northern Strip at the time of the attack, and had apparently fled the scene for fear of being detained, injured, or killed.
In the meantime, Israeli armed guards manning along-border watch towers opened intermittent gunfire on farmers and homes situated along the borderline with Israel to the south of the Strip.
No injuries were reported.
“For nine consecutive years, Israel has tightened the land and naval closure to isolate the Gaza Strip from the West Bank, including occupied Jerusalem, and other countries around the world,” said the Palestinian Center for Human Rights (PCHR).
The Israeli navy targets Gaza fishermen and locals along the borderline area on an almost daily basis, in a blatant breach of a ceasefire agreement reached between Israel and armed Palestinian groups in august 2014, following 51 days of bloody aggression on the Gaza Strip, which claimed the lives of over 2.200 Palestinians, mostly civilians.
According to the OCHA weekly report covering the period between 16 and 22 of February 2016, “At least 21 incidents involving Israeli forces opening warning fire at Palestinian civilians in the Access Restricted Areas (ARA) on land and sea in the Gaza Strip were recorded, none of which resulted in casualties.”
Archive IMEMC report: 03/01/15 94 Israeli Ceasefire Violations Since August
