Sabbah Report » Fishermen

In Gaza, Dreaming of Fish and Flowers

Mohammed Omer — Sat, 18 Sep 2010 16:18:22 +0000

By Mohammed Omer* | Sabbah Report | www.sabbah.biz

Zaki Al-Habeel (left) prepares his boat. Photo: Mohammed Omer

Gaza City - As the many colors of the fish and flowers slowly disappear from the Gaza landscape, the already grim prospects of the besieged residents begins to look even bleaker.

Fishing was a profession that used to keep thousands of fishermen and their families fed, but with Israel restricting the movements of fishermen, the catches are diminishing.

The same fate has overtaken the local flower farmers whose carnations were the delight of lovers and loved ones across Europe. Gaza used to export 75 million flowers to the EU duty free, before Israel embargoed all export.

There is little movement on the harbor during the day. Only a few fishing boats line the piers of the Gaza Strip.

"The fish are waiting, but the fishermen are being kept away," says Zaki al-Habeel, 33-year-old father of seven. But just before sunset, he is ready to go fishing.

Al-Habeel is not allowed to go as far out as he used to. The fishermen have been set a limit of three miles. "But it is not really three full miles," he says.

Often he is only a mile-and-a-half out before the Israeli navy fires at him. Al-Habeel and his brothers who are all fishermen risk injuries and damage to equipment every time they sail out.

Over the last decade, the Israeli navy has increasingly restricted Palestinian access to fishing zones along the Gaza beach, a UN report revealed last month.

The United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (UNOCHA) compiled the report in cooperation with the World Food Program (WFP).

The report said Palestinian fishermen have been barred from 85 percent of the naval territory to which they are entitled under the Oslo Agreement of 1993 between Israel and the PLO.

The report also focused on the buffer zone between Israel and Gaza where farmers are shot at for tilling their own lands. The report mentions 22 Palestinians killed and 146 wounded in such incidents since January 2009.

Yet the farmers and fishermen continue to access these prohibited areas, risking their life and limb.

As Al-Habeel says, he and his brothers "have to feed our families." The last time, the Israeli navy shot out the fuel lines that are connected to his boat. Al-Habeel was just relieved they did not hit the small fuel tank, which is expensive and hard to find.

Last month, a 22-year-old fisherman was hospitalized with gunshot injuries, when he was perhaps a little more than two miles from the shore, other fishermen said.

The plight of the flower growers is just as wretched. Gaza-grown carnations, marketed under the brand name Coral, were popular all over Europe. But the situation has been going downhill for a while. In 2008, IPS had interviewed the carnation farmer Majed Hadaeid when his situation was quite desperate.

He had owned a 130-dunam (32-acre) farm yielding 16-17 million carnations a year in 30 different varieties and colors This year he has lost his entire four-million-dollar business, and is burdened with debts amounting to 1.5 million dollars.

There is a faint hope though. The European Campaign to Break the Siege on Gaza announced in July that more than 9,000 delegates have applied to take a ‘freedom flotilla’ to Gaza. They are raising 100,000 euros to send an Irish ship this autumn.

Hadaeid hopes these aid boats from Europe will help the other farmers to survive. "We need the flotillas to keep up continuous pressure on Israel," he said.

The fishermen nostalgically remember that day in August 2008 when the first flotilla arrived and members of the Free Gaza Movement joined them on their boats.

Al-Habeel says, "We were then able to get as far as six miles to fish."

Everyone cheers the news of another flotilla. Fatima Subhi, a 49-year-old, schoolteacher said, "I welcome such delegations."

The news has not all been positive though. In May this year, Israelis attacked the Turkish aid boat Mavi Marmara killing many people on board, including a Turkish-American passenger.

Turkish flags are seen at almost every street corner. A dish-seller is wearing a Turkish flag as a T-shirt. "They shed their blood for us, so we wear their flag over our hearts," he says.

This summer, quite a few Turkish names have appeared on shop fronts. There is the Marmara Restaurant, the Istanbul Café and a ladies cosmetics shop simply called Istanbul.

Samir Al-Ejjel, who owns a shop selling carnations, has designed a bouquet he calls Erdogan in honor of the Turkish Prime Minister and has a Turkish flag flying outside his shop.

There was a report in the Israeli daily Maariv last week that thousands of activists from Western nations, as well as from Arab countries and even Israeli citizens, were preparing to send a flotilla of 30 ships.

Al-Habeel likes to think that the many different people who came by land or sea were just like the wide varieties of fish he used to catch.

As he waits hopefully for the flotillas to return, a younger fisherman talks about the "beautiful ladies" who were on board. "The Israelis do not dare to shoot at (European) women," he says with a smile.

"Those flotillas gave us hope that rights can be protected — even under gunfire," he added.

In the past, the fishermen and flower farmers have appealed to the EU for support. But with governments turning a deaf ear, they call on humanitarian activists from around the world. They hold on to the hope that by Christmas there will be more varieties of fish on the table here, and colorful Gaza carnations in the markets of Europe.

* Mohammed Omer is a Palestinian journalist. He has reported for numerous media outlets, including the Washington report on Middle East Affairs, Pacifica Radio, Electronic Intifada and Inter Press Service. In 2008, Omer was awarded the 2007 Martha Gelhorn prize for Journalism. In the award citation, Omer was honoured as "the voice of the voiceless" and his reports were described as a "humane record of the injustice imposed on a community forgotten by much of the world."

(Inter Press Service)

American woman from San Jose, CA, among 18 abducted at gunpoint in Gaza

Haitham Sabbah — Sat, 22 Nov 2008 17:54:40 +0000

Darlene Wallach, a human rights observer from San Jose, California, is among eighteen persons abducted off the coast of Gaza on November 18, 2008. The others are fellow human rights observers Andrew Muncie of Scotland and Vittorio Arrigoni of Italy, as well as fifteen Palestinian fishermen. All eighteen were fishing in Gaza waters in zones authorized for Palestinian fisherman by the Oslo agreements of 1993 and 1994. They were abducted at gunpoint by Israeli frogmen and taken to Israel, along with the fishing boats.

The fishermen were released and returned to Gaza, although their boats, which are their means of livelihood, are still being held. Israel is charging the three human rights observers with illegally entering Israel, and is making arrangements to deport them to their home countries.

The observers counter that they were forcibly taken to Israel and should be returned to Gaza. "We were never in Israel, and all of us were taken against our will and contrary to all agreements that Israel has signed," says Wallach, 57, who was also arrested and deported from Israel in 2002 for participating in human rights advocacy in the Israeli occupied Palestinian West Bank region. "Israel claims that it no longer occupies Gaza, so what is it doing in Gaza waters, especially when there is no security threat at all?"

On August 23, 2008, Wallach, Muncie and Arrigoni were among 44 participants in the Free Gaza Movement who were aboard the first boats in forty-one years to enter Gaza by sea, breaking the Israeli blockade. They remained in Gaza to participate in human rights activities with the International Solidarity Movement. They are conducting a hunger strike in prison until Israel meets their demands to return them to Gaza and release the fishing boats.

Further information is available at www.freegaza.org and www.palsolidarity.org. Wallach, Muncie and Arrigoni can sometimes by reached by telephone in prison for press interviews. Interested parties are invited to contact the persons listed in this message.

CONTACT:
Caoimhe (Gaza) + 972 598 273 960
Donna (Gaza) + 972 598 836 420
Fida (Gaza - Arabic) â€“ + 972 599 681 669
ISM Media Office - + 972 2-2971824
Paul (USA) +1 510-236-5338

Scottish Activist Films Israeli Navy Shooting at Gaza Fishermen

Haitham Sabbah — Tue, 16 Sep 2008 17:05:24 +0000

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Scottish activist films Israeli navy shooting at Gaza fishermen

A SCOTTISH human rights activist has filmed the Israeli navy firing machine guns at unarmed Palestinian fishing boats in the Mediterranean Sea off the coast of the Gaza Strip.

The footage, taken on September 6 by Andrew Muncie, who is from the Highlands, shows an Israeli gunboat engaging fishing boats while international observers hold their arms in the air and scream for them to stop firing.

No-one was injured in the incident, but Palestinian fishermen claim 14 colleagues have been murdered at sea by the Israeli navy since the onset of an economic blockade imposed after Hamas took control of the Gaza Strip in June 2007. Israel says patrolling these waters is a vital security measure to stop weapons being smuggled into Gaza.

Muncie, 34, of Dalbreagha, Spean Bridge, is working with the Free Gaza movement and arrived in Gaza last month as part of a group of 40 activists who sailed on two boats from Cyprus in an attempt to breach Israel's blockade. He was accompanied by an 81-year-old nun, an 84-year-old holocaust survivor and Cherie Blair's sister, Lauren Booth.

Source: Sunday Herald

[Hat tip: Kimmy]

PS. The video is also available on YouTube here (at least for now!).