No Fish for You! Israeli Navy arrests 6 Gazans for Fishing While Palestinian
By contributors | Jul. 8, 2015 |
By Palestinian Center For Human Rights – PCHR | Gaza Report | – –
Israeli Naval Forces Continue Chasing Fishermen In The Gaza Strip Sea
On Tuesday morning, 7 July 2015, Israeli gunboats chased and opened fire at a Palestinian fishing boats. They also arrested 6 fishermen, and confiscated 3 fishing boats.
The Palestinian Center for Human Rights (PCHR) observed that Israeli forces escalated their attacks against fishermen in the Gaza Strip sea and documented the following during last week: four fishermen, including a child were wounded; 14 fishermen, including two children, were arrested; and three fishing boats were confiscated.
As a result of these attacks, fishermen were denied their right to sail and fish freely in the Gaza Strip sea.
According to investigations conducted by PCHR, at approximately 06:00 on Tuesday, 7 July 2015, Israeli naval forces stationed off al-Sudaniya shore in the northern Gaza Strip opened fire at 2 Palestinian fishing boats carrying 4 Palestinian fishermen on board and sailing within three nautical miles off al-Soudaniya shore.
Israeli naval officers, who were on board of two gunboats, forced the four fishermen to stop working, jump into the sea and swim towards one of the gunboats.
Eventually, the officers arrested them and confiscated the fishing boat.
The arrested fishers were identified as: Kamal Rushdi Saleh Abu Warda(45); his son Refaat Abu Warda (21); Refaat Zayed Mahmoud Zayed (26); and his brother Medhat (23). They are all from Gaza City. The fishermen are still in custody.
In another attack on Tuesday also, at approximately 07:30, a Palestinian fishing boat carrying two fishermen, identified as Ramadan Saleh Rushdi Abu Warda (37), and his son Mahmoud Mohammed Rushdi Abu Warda (26), tried to go together to fishing nets pieces that belong to the above-mentioned fishermen, referred to in the first incident.
Israeli gunboats forced the fishermen to jump into the sea and swim toward one of the gunboats, arrested them and confiscated their fishing boat.
PCHR condemns Israeli attacks against the Palestinian fishermen in the Gaza Strip, and:
1. Calls for immediately stopping the policy of chasing and arresting Palestinian fishermen, allowing them to sail and fish freely and to returning confiscated fishing boats and tools;
2. Calls for compensating the victims of Israel’s violations for the physical and material damage caused to fishermen and their property;
3. Calls for releasing Palestinian fishermen who have been under the Israeli custody; and
4. Calls upon the international community, including the High Contracting Parties to the Fourth Geneva Convention 1949, to intervene in order to stop Israeli attacks against Palestinian fishermen and allow them to fish freely in the Gaza Strip sea.
.. or the Palestinians in Gaza and the West Bank ..
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Israel ready for EU dialogue - but don't mention the settlements
Jerusalem only agrees to talk about improving the Palestinians' economic situation at meeting with European Union in September.
By Barak Ravid | Jul. 13, 2015 | 9:07 AM | 27
Palestinian school children walk past a section of Israel's separation barrier in the West Bank village of Abu Dis, on the outskirt of Jerusalem. Photo by AP
Israel told the European Union last week that it is willing to open talks with the EU about the situation in the West Bank .. http://www.haaretz.com/misc/tags/West%20Bank-1.477132 . The first round of talks is scheduled for September.
A senior official in Jerusalem said that while the EU wanted to discuss construction of settlements and steps that could threaten the two-state solution, Israel made clear it was prepared only for the talks to deal with improving the economic situation for Palestinians in the West Bank and the Gaza Strip.
The European request to launch a dialogue on the situation in the West Bank and preservation of the two-state solution was conveyed to Israel last November. Israel only decided how to respond to the European proposal some eight months later.
The senior Israeli official said one of the reasons it took so long for Israel to formulate its response was the Knesset election in March.
About a week ago, the Foreign Ministry’s deputy director for Western Europe, Aviv Shir-On, met with the EU’s ambassador in Israel, Lars Faaborg-Andersen, and informed him Israel was prepared to open a “structured dialogue” on the Palestinian issue.
Shir-On told the EU ambassador that Israel had a number of conditions for talks, chief among them that the talks be at a relatively low, technical level.
Representatives from both sides will meet before the September meeting to formulate an agenda, although that won’t be easy. Israel’s second condition is that negotiations not deal with issues involving a permanent agreement between Israel and the Palestinians.
The main issue that Israel refuses to discuss is settlement construction – a key issue for the Europeans, because they believe continued construction threatens to make the two-state solution impossible.
The senior official in Jerusalem said Israel made clear to the Europeans that it was only willing to discuss ways to improve the socioeconomic situation in both the West Bank and the Gaza Strip.
Incitement against Israel
The official said Israel is willing to discuss issues that have been raised by the EU before, including infrastructure projects for the Palestinians in the West Bank, especially in Area C, where Israel has full security and civilian control, and the approval of master plans for the Palestinians in Area C.
The senior official added that Israel will want to raise issues such as corruption within the Palestinian Authority and incitement against Israel.
In October 2014, Haaretz revealed the existence of an internal EU document, with directives to Faaborg-Andersen to convey to the government in Jerusalem a sharply worded message in the name of all 28 EU members, regarding steps the document said Israel was taking that constituted a direct and growing threat to the two-state solution.
The European decision to convey such a message came after Israel declared some 4,000 dunams (about 1,000 acres) of land in Gush Etzion (a settlement bloc in the West Bank, south of Jerusalem) as state lands, and also moved ahead on planning of the Givat Hamatos neighborhood over the Green Line in Jerusalem.
It was when Faaborg-Andersen relayed the message in November 2014 that he stressed the EU’s desire to launch a dialogue with Israel on preserving the two-state solution.
In the framework of the dialogue, the Europeans wanted to present a series of “red lines” in the West Bank that if Israel crossed them, would lead to European sanctions.
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