GAZA, July 20, 2015 (WAFA) – Israeli army Monday opened gunfire towards farmlands and homes adjacent to the border fence east of Gaza city, according to WAFA correspondent.

The Israeli soldiers, stationed at borderline watchtowers, randomly opened a hail of gunfire towards the neighboring houses; however, there were no reports of casualties.

Israeli army and navy open fire on farmers and fishermen almost on a daily basis injuring unarmed Palestinians and sometimes killing them. Last March, a fisherman was killed and another was injured after Israeli naval boats targeted them with gunfire, despite sailing within the six-nautical-mile zone offshore the Gaza Strip.

Since 2005, Israel unilaterally imposed a 300-meter-wide buffer zone into the border with Gaza, sharply affecting the livelihood of tens of thousands of Gaza farmers, who rely heavily on agriculture to provide for their families.

Israeli troops typically enforce the buffer zone with live fire, according to the Gaza-based Palestinian Centre for Human Rights (PCHR), which often results in, inter alia, the direct targeting of civilians and/or indiscriminate attacks, both of which constitute war crimes.

PCHR reports that Israeli attacks against Palestinian civilians take place anywhere up to approximately 1.5 kilometers inside the border fence, which constitutes approximately 17 percent of the total territory of the Gaza Strip. Approximately 27,000 dunums, 35% of the Gaza Strip's agricultural land, can only be accessed under high personal risk, as Israeli attacks may result in injury or death of civilians.

As of 2010, UN-OCHA estimated that 35 percent of Gaza's agricultural land is located in restricted-access areas, affecting the lives and livelihoods of approximately 113,000 people.

Farmers in farmlands on the borders say their situation has only worsened since the last war ended in 2014, pointing to the Israeli military's frequent incursions into their lands and its practice of firing live ammunition at farmers who enter the sizable 'buffer zone' between Gaza and Israel.

Israel and Palestinian factions entered into a ceasefire since August 26, 2014 following the barbarous Israeli war on the Strip, which claimed the lives of over 2,260 Gaza refugees, overwhelmingly civilians.

Under the ceasefire, Israel was to immediately ease the blockade imposed on the Strip and expand the fishing zone off Gaza's coast, allowing fishermen to sail as far as six nautical miles from shore. Israel has so far failed meet this condition.

M.N/M.H