The forbidden sea
With the Palestinian economy near total collapse, Gaza fishermen mend their nets and pray for better times. Annika Hampson reports from Gaza
Two and a half years after the outbreak of the Al-Aqsa Intifada, the Palestinian economy, which was on the road to recovery before October 2000, is near complete collapse. Total income losses have reached a staggering US$2 billion a year, or US$7 million each day; poverty levels are estimated at 60 per cent in the West Bank and 70 per cent in the Gaza Strip; unemployment has risen to 50 per cent; investment has plummeted to negligible levels, and the Palestinian budget remains in critical condition. The current dire situation reflects the deepening Palestinian economic crisis resulting from Israel's stringent closure policy and the total domination of this policy on Palestinian economic life.
In the Gaza Strip, the Israeli authorities have enforced restrictions and closures on Palestinian fishermen, strangling an already devastated sector of the traumatised economy. There are approximately 2,500 fishermen in Gaza, with an additional 1,500 workers employed in related jobs. Prior to the Intifada, the fishermen earned between US$300 and $400 a month. Today, they barely scrap together a tenth of that, and most exist under the poverty line.
Jamil Al-Amoudy, 58, a Palestinian refugee originally from Jaffa, is a third-generation fisherman based in Gaza city. "I have been working as a fisherman since I was eight years old," he says, "and during all these years, I haven't faced a situation as bad as the one we are living now." These days he spends his time sitting by the harbour, mending his nets, smoking nargeela and playing cards with the other stranded fishermen.
"Every day I hear stories about how the fishermen are subjected to humiliation and harassment," says Mohamed Zakout, director of the Al-Tawfiq Cooperative Society of Fishermen. One fisherman was forced to undress, before he was handcuffed and arrested, another had his boat confiscated. One was shot at, another had his motor confiscated, and another had his fishing licence taken away. Zakout looks out of his office window at the fishermen on the beach and asks, "How can people earn a living facing these conditions?"
The fishermen are confined to a restricted fishing area, with limited access both to the north and south. Although the Israeli authorities agreed to allow fishermen to go 12 nautical miles out to sea, this commitment is rarely adhered to, and the fishermen are often prohibited from going further than six nautical miles out to sea. On other days, they simply aren't allowed out at all.
In Khan Younis and Rafah, in the southern Gaza Strip, the situation is even worse. The Gush Katif settlement block dominates and effectively controls the entire southern stretch of the coastline. The Israeli authorities have imposed a full curfew on the fishermen, prohibiting them from even going on the beach. The supposed security threat to the settlers is cited as justification. Similar restrictions are imposed in the north of the Strip, close to the border with Israel, where security issues are again used as justification for the closure.
Even before the Intifada, the Israelis imposed restrictions on the fishermen which prohibited them from earning a living. The sardines, tuna and Sultan Ibrahim fish are much further out, in deeper water, beyond the border of the area where the fishermen were allowed to fish. As a result, Mustafa Megdad, 37, hasn't fished for the past 10 years, opting instead to work in the harbour, painting and maintaining the boats instead. But as long as the fishermen earn no money, he doesn't get paid. "We should be out at sea," he says, "instead we are sitting here." Generations of Megdad's family were fishermen; in Ashqelon before the family fled to Gaza in 1948. Looking out across the harbour, he says, "The sea is in my blood," and then asks, "What right do they have to stop us doing our job?"
Naheed Bakker specialises in sardine fishing. "I used to catch four tons of sardines a day," he boasts. "I would go all the way down to the Egyptian border to fish." Some months ago, however, Bakker was out at sea when an Israeli patrol boat arrested him and confiscated his boat. "First they fired shots in the water around my boat," he explains, "then they made me take off my clothes, before handcuffing and arresting me." Although Bakker was fishing within the permitted area, he was detained for several days, without charge, and then forced to pay 5,000 Jordanian Dinars to release his boat. "I am ruined, I'm facing a real disaster," he says. Since he can no longer afford the petrol to take his boat out to sea, he has been unable to earn a living. "My wife has sold her dowry so we could buy food for the children," he says, "now, my wife is pregnant with our ninth child, and I have just 10 shekels ($2) in my pocket. I can't even afford a sack of flour. I can't do anything. I just sit here and wait for God's mercy."
