Israeli Military Targets Gaza Farmers, Fishermen, Detains One
Gaza, MINA – Israeli military on Wednesday targeted Palestinian farmers and fishermen in the southern and northern besieged Gaza Strip, according to WAFA correspondent.
He said that Israeli forces fired live ammunition and smoke shells towards farmlands, east of the city of Khan Younis in the southern part of the strip, forcing farmers to leave their lands.
He added that a Palestinian, who remained unidentified, was detained by Israeli soldiers after he purportedly approached the border fence, south of Khan Younes.
Meanwhile, Israeli navy opened gunfire and water hoses toward fishermen as the latter were sailing only three nautical miles offshore Sudaniya coast, northwest of the city of Gaza, forcing them to flee and return to shore to avoid being hit or their boats damaged.
No casualties were reported in any of the attacks though.
Fourteen years following the Israeli “disengagement” from Gaza, Israel has not actually disengaged from Gaza. They still maintain 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. (T/RE1)
Mi’raj News Agency (MINA)
