ISRAEL has continued its genocidal assault on Palestinian civilians across Gaza and occupied Jerusalem this week.
The Gaza Centre for Human Rights issued a report yesterday documenting the comprehensive destruction of Gaza’s fishing sector, warning the campaign forms part of Israel’s broader use of starvation as a weapon in its genocide in the Strip.
Of roughly 2,000 small fishing vessels and around 100 large trawlers that once operated along the coast, approximately 95 per cent have been destroyed by Israeli bombardment.
Infrastructure across Gaza’s main harbour and the fishing ports of Khan Younis and Rafah has been wiped out, including engines, storage rooms, ice factories and repair workshops.
More than 5,000 fishermen depended on the sector for their livelihoods.
At least 235 have been killed, including around 40 shot while working, and dozens more wounded attempting to fish within 100 metres of the shore.
At least 43 fishermen have been arrested at sea with their remaining equipment confiscated.
The centre said Israeli forces have effectively declared Gaza’s coastline a closed military zone, with fishermen facing direct gunfire if they approach the water.
It said these practices constitute war crimes and crimes against humanity, violating Article 54 of Additional Protocol I to the Geneva Conventions, which prohibits attacking objects indispensable to civilian survival.
On the ground yesterday, Israeli forces carried out airstrikes on eastern Khan Younis, artillery shelling on eastern Gaza City and the surroundings of the Bureij refugee camp, and helicopter fire toward eastern Gaza City, in successive attacks in violation of the ceasefire announced on 11th October last year.
The Palestinian Ministry of Health reported one person killed and two injured in the preceding 24 hours, with an unknown number of victims still trapped under rubble as ambulance and civil defence teams remain unable to reach them.
The cumulative death toll since 7 October 2023 has risen to 72,135 killed and 171,830 injured.
Since the ceasefire was declared, a further 650 people have been killed and 1,732 wounded, with 756 bodies recovered from beneath the rubble.
In occupied Jerusalem, Israeli authorities kept Al- Aqsa Mosque sealed for a twelfth consecutive day, preventing worshippers from performing Tarawih prayers and religious retreat during the final ten nights of Ramadan.
Dozens of Palestinian youths prayed instead at the closest accessible point, near Bab al-Sahira outside the mosque compound.
Authorities cited a state of emergency linked to the US-Israeli offensive against Iran as justification.
The closure is the first of its kind since Israel occupied Jerusalem in 1967 and comes on top of restrictions imposed since the beginning of Ramadan that had already barred large numbers of West Bank Palestinians from reaching the holy site.
