GAZA, Wednesday, February 24, 2021 (WAFA) – Israeli navy Wednesday morning attacked Palestinian fishing boats sailing offshore the city of Gaza, WAFA correspondent reported.

He said that the Israeli navy opened fire and water hoses at Palestinian fishing boats sailing within six nautical miles offshore Gaza city, causing damages to the boats.

The fishermen had to leave the water and abruptly end their fishing mission, which is their sole source of livelihood.

Meanwhile, Israeli forces manning Gaza’s frontier opened fire at Palestinian farmers and shepherds who were tending their groves and flocks to the east of Khan Younes city, in the southern coastal enclave, forcing them to leave.

No casualties were reported though.

Fourteen years following the Israeli “disengagement” from Gaza, Israel has not actually disengaged from Gaza; it still maintains control of its land borders, access to the sea and airspace.

Two million Palestinians live the Gaza Strip, which has been subjected to a punishing and crippling Israeli blockade for 12 years and repeated onslaughts that have heavily damaged much of the enclave’s infrastructure.

Gaza’s 2-million population remains under “remote control” occupation and a strict siege, which has destroyed the local economy, strangled Palestinian livelihoods, plunged them into unprecedented rates of unemployment and poverty, and cut off from the rest of the occupied Palestinian territories and the wider world.

Gaza remains occupied territory, having no control over its borders, territorial waters or airspace. Meanwhile, Israel upholds very few of its responsibilities as the occupying power, failing to provide for the basic needs of Palestinian civilians living in the territory.

Every two in three Palestinians in Gaza is a refugee from lands inside what is now Israel. That government forbids them from exercising their right to return as enshrined in international law because they are not Jews.

K.T./ K.F.