GAZA, Friday, April 08, 2022 (WAFA) – Israel’s navy today targeted Palestinian fishermen sailing offshore Rafah city in the southern besieged Gaza Strip and confiscated two boats, according to WAFA correspondent.

He said that the fishermen were sailing within three nautical miles offshore the city when Israeli naval boats opened heavy gunfire and water hoses toward them, held a boat with four fishermen aboard and transferred them to the nearby Ashdod Port before ultimately releasing them and confiscating two boats.

The navy also opened water hoses towards fishermen offshore As-Sudaniya area, northwest of Gaza, attempted to sink their boats and ultimately forced them to leave.

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.F.