Killing The Fish of Gaza

• CrossFireArabia
• November 1, 2025

Following the war, Gaza’s fishing sector has been left in a catastrophic state, with infrastructure largely destroyed, production severely reduced and fishermen facing an ongoing battle to resume their livelihood. Although a ceasefire now is in place, Israeli restrictions continue to hamper any recovery.

The conflict has brought Gaza’s once thriving fishing sector to collapse and the impact of the two- year escalation on the sector is devastating. Since October 7, Israel has systematically destroyed Gaza’s important source of food and livelihoods for residents of the Strip as its critical fishing sector has been almost completely obliterated.

Gaza’s average daily catch just between October 2023 and April 2024 dropped to 7.3 percent of 2022 levels, causing a $17.5 million production loss.

The main seaport in Gaza City and other landing sites has been destroyed and Gaza’s two main aquaculture farms along with the hatchery facility wiped out leaving the sector unable to produce alternative aquatic foods through aquaculture.

According to an assessment, before the conflict, over 6,000 residents in Gaza relied on the fishing industry for their primary source of income, of this total; approximately 4,500 were fishermen and boat owners.

The fishing sector supported approximately 110,000 people, according to the UN Food and Agriculture Organization (FA0), although Israel’s restrictions on the industry before the war thwarted its potential both in terms of local production to meet the needs of the population and as a source of export.

Over the years, Israel blocked access to the maritime area off the coast of the Gaza Strip, maintained a limited “fishing zone” and allowed fishermen to operate in an area only up to six nautical miles from the coast in the northern Gaza Strip and up to 15 nautical miles in certain areas, despite the Oslo Accords stipulating that should be allowed up to 20 nautical miles from the coast.

The Israeli navy enforced restrictions on the fishing zone through warning shots or live fire towards vessels and fishermen, killing or severely injuring people on multiple occasions.

In addition, Israel destroyed or confiscated boats and equipment as a matter of policy, arrested fishermen and restricted the entry of material necessary for the repair and rehabilitation of boats, such as fiberglass, engines and other items.

Over the course of the aggression, the coastal fishing infrastructure has sustained massive damage, including the main Gaza Seaport, several smaller ports, fishermen’s rooms, and vital fishing equipment.

As of late 2024 and mid – 2025, reports from NGO’s and human rights groups state that approximately 95 per cent of the fishing sector in Gaza has been destroyed.

The damage to Gaza’s fishing sector has exacerbated an already dire food security crisis as fish, once a vital source of protein and other essential nutrients for Gazans, is now nearly unavailable.

Today, in Gaza’s fishing areas lie broken boats, torn nets, and ruined infrastructure, standing in stark contrast to the once-vibrant industry that supported thousands of fishers for generations.

Fishermen have been killed, chased, and arrested, while most of their boats and equipment have been destroyed.

For Gazans, the sea was not just a source of food, but a source of livelihood and identity.

The Israeli military’s tactics in its horrific war have shown a focused effort to disrupt and destroy the civilian way of life, thereby crippling the very survival of the Gaza population.

The territory’s fishing sector stands among the hardest hit, its work force devastated and productivity nearly extinguished.

According to the Palestinian Fishermen’s Syndicate, Israel has pursued a systematic campaign to dismantle the industry that for centuries has played a significant part in the Palestinian economy, culture, and cuisine.

The fishing industry has been central to Gaza’s economy, providing employment for fishermen and others in subsidiary jobs related to packaging, marketing, and transportation as well as boat repair and maintenance.

Notably, the sector provided direct and indirect employment opportunities for youth and women, particularly through small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) in both formal and informal settings.

According to the Palestinian NGO Network (PNGO), before the war, there were more than 2,000 fishing vessels in Gaza, of which 1,100 had engines and about 900 were manually operated.

The fishing industry in Gaza was one of the few autonomous food production sectors in the Strip, and therefore had a direct and critical impact on the food security of the population. According to PNGO, the sector produced an average of 3,000-4,000 tons of fish per year, alongside an additional 300-500 tons from artificial fish farms in recent years.

The decimation of the fishing industry, together with the destruction of other means of food production, has contributed to the humanitarian catastrophe in Gaza and ensured continued dependence of the population on entry of aid.

According to the Integrated Food Security Phase Classification (IPC) report, from May 2025, the entire population of the Gaza Strip, approximately 2.1 million people, has been facing an imminent risk of famine.

Given the restrictions on the entry of humanitarian aid into the Strip since the beginning of the war, the fishing industry could have provided a source of protein to partially alleviate the crisis; instead, Israel’s destruction of the industry dramatically worsened the situation.

In addition, the Gaza fishing sector faces severe environmental challenges, including the depletion of fish stocks due to overfishing in a confined area, the destruction of fish farms, and the pollution from wastewater and damaged infrastructure.

Today, after Israel’s war halted, the situation underscores the urgent need for coordinated recovery efforts, including the restoration of fishing infrastructure, support for affected workers, and sustainable investment to rebuild the sector and protect the livelihoods it sustains.

After extensive damage, the reconstruction of Gaza’s fisheries sector requires a multi prolonged and long- term effort.

The plan involves emergency relief for fishers, restoring critical infrastructure, removing explosive ordnance, rebuilding the fish farming industry, and addressing environmental contamination.

Sufficient and sustained international funding is needed, as the estimated recovery cost of Gaza across all sectors is in the tens of billions of dollars.

A stable and sustained ceasefire is the most crucial precondition, as demonstrated by the failure of recovery efforts during renewed conflicts.

Significant international aid and a lasting peace are essential for the sector’s revival.

Najla M. Shahwan is a Palestinian author, researcher and freelance journalist and contributed the above article to the Jordan Times.

Thirty Minutes in a Gaza Hospital

• CrossFireArabia
• October 4, 2025

By Daniel Johnson

3 October 2025 Peace and Security

UN aid teams on Friday highlighted the disturbing situation in Gaza’s makeshift hospitals, where premature babies cry for scant oxygen and medics attempt to save child survivors targeted by airstrikes in their tents and quadcopter victims reportedly shot while fetching bread. 

Speaking from the war-shattered enclave amid the ongoing Israeli military push to take full control of Gaza City, UNICEF spokesperson James Elder described one short visit to a hospital where youngsters were either suffering or dying everywhere he looked.

As we’re talking to the surgeon there, she dies on the bed in front of us

One victim at Al Aqsa Hospital in Deir Al-Balah, central Gaza, was six-year-old Aya, injured by an airstrike. “I’m really noticing not just the wound, but the attention that the bobs in her hair, the care that a parent’s given before the airstrike,” he said. “As we’re talking to the surgeon there, she dies on the bed in front of us. That’s 30 minutes in a hospital.” 

No space to move

At the same hospital, Mr. Elder reported seeing three children “all shot by quadcopters” – an attack drone with four propellers.

“It’s a war zone, children … bleeding out on the floor” with others wounded by shooting, shrapnel or burns.

The UNICEF spokesperson underscored reports that 1,000 infants have been killed in the last two years in Gaza since Hamas-led terror attacks in Israel triggered the war. “We have no idea how many more have died from preventable illnesses,” he continued.

With only around 14 of Gaza’s 36 hospitals still open and partially functional after almost two years of war, they are often “absolutely packed” with people needing help, Mr. Elder stressed.

Rescued, terrified

“I turn around and there’s a little girl, Sham, who has just been pulled from the rubble; so, she’s covered in that dust and smoke with that terrified expression on her face, being held by an aunt or an uncle… Now Sham didn’t have any broken bones nor internal injury, [she] was not told though, that her mother and her sister were both killed in that attack.”

Turning to Gaza City, the veteran UN aid worker stressed that many thousands of people remain there unable to leave, amid continuing Israeli evacuation orders airstrikes that have left children “shuddering” and gazing skywards “to track the fire” from helicopters and quadcopters.

“You’ve got shoeless children who push grandparents around the rubble, amputee children are struggling through the dust, mothers are carrying exhausted children – literally their skin is bleeding because of the severity of rashes,” Mr. Elder continued, before warning about “continued indiscriminate attacks in densely populated civilian areas despite official statements”.

Another aid worker killed

On Thursday, the NGO Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF) confirmed the killing in Gaza of its fourteenth medical worker, occupational therapist Omar Hayek, in an attack that also injured four of his colleagues in Deir Al-Balah.

Until 13 September he had worked at an MSF clinic in Gaza City before finally evacuating amid “relentless attacks and forced displacement from Israeli forces”, the NGO maintained.

“People are scared and rightly so…“If you ask me now, can we do our work? I say no, of course we cannot do our work in the north,” said Dr Rik Peeperkorn, UN World Health Organization (WHO) Representative in the Occupied Palestinian Territory.

The level of violence in Gaza is such that nowhere is safe, including field hospitals, which offer no protection from stray bullets, said Christian Cardon from the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC).

“We had several occasions of people being injured, brought to the hospital and while they were being treated, were wounded again because of stray bullets coming in the hospital,” he said, noting another such incident on Thursday according to UN News.

Day in The Life of a Displaced Person

• CrossFireArabia
• September 20, 2025

By Shaimaa Eid

Al-Mawasi was no refuge, just another stop in a long journey of suffering, where life is not truly lived, but merely endured.”

Once again, we were forced to leave northern Gaza under a relentless storm of shelling, fear, and destruction—beginning yet another displacement heavy with exhaustion and loss, this time toward Al-Mawasi in Khan Yunis.

There, in the place the occupation claimed was “safe,” with access to water, medicine, and basic humanitarian needs, we found only land overwhelmed with displaced families, weary faces, and recurring pain. Al-Mawasi was no refuge, only another stop in a long journey of suffering, where life is not truly lived, but merely endured.

Our joy at touching the walls of our home again did not last long. It was the same home that had been struck by Israeli shells during the ceasefire. We returned carrying hope, trying with our tired hands and hearts to clear the rubble, to wipe the dust off memories, to bring back a trace of the home’s old heartbeat.

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We believed that love would be enough to stay—that holding on to our home, even with all its wounds, was the least we could do. As a family, we made a promise: we would not leave, we would stay as long as we had breath in our bodies.

But the occupation, with its violence and arrogance, stripped us of even that right. And once again, we were left with nothing but the bitterness of forced departure.

In the Sheikh Radwan neighborhood, we were trapped under fire from quadcopter drones. They shelled and chased every movement, making it impossible to open the door or even glance through a window. We lived through endless nights of terror, listening to the constant buzzing above our heads, counting the seconds until the next missile would strike.

Then the occupation installed a crane-mounted sniper position to the east of the neighborhood, targeting anyone who moved through the streets. It felt as though they had surrounded us with a fence of fire, suffocating our lives, tightening the noose around us, and forcing us once more toward displacement.

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The final days before our departure felt like the horrors of Judgment Day. Many of our neighbors received evacuation warnings, followed by devastating shells. The smell of gunpowder and smoke still lingers in my nose to this day, and I continue to struggle with breathing from the intensity of what we endured. We were cut off from water and food; markets were closed; even street stalls became targets for bombs dropped by planes at night. We had no choice but to flee southward to escape certain death.

The journey of displacement was harsh in every detail. My elderly parents, burdened by chronic illness, could not endure the long road. We carried their worries in our hearts before carrying them in our arms. Our trip from the north to the south took nearly six hours under a blazing sun, along the Rashid Road, which the occupation designated as the evacuation route.

On the way, we witnessed a scene that will never be erased from memory: a tent on the beach shelled right before our eyes, with bodies scattered across the sand. We were only meters away, yet that distance was enough to rob us of sleep forever. Even now, whenever I close my eyes, that scene returns to wake me.

After the exhausting journey, we arrived at the Khan Yunis displacement camp. The place was unbearably overcrowded. Services were scarce, far too few for everyone. People were forced to go down to the sea under the scorching sun to collect salty water, which led to the spread of skin diseases among both adults and children. Watching people fill bottles from the sea felt like a scene from an apocalyptic novel. Everything here is difficult: sleeping, eating, getting medicine—even finding a small patch of shade to rest beneath has become a challenge.

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Today, we live in a whirlwind of anxiety and fear. Every day, we watch the news of new residential towers collapsing in Gaza. We go to sleep wondering: will our home still be standing, or will it too become rubble? My parents need ongoing medical care and medications that we cannot find.

I feel powerless and frustrated at my inability to secure their medicine, and at our family’s helplessness in the face of this relentless tragedy.

And yet, despite all this, there is an inner voice that refuses to give in. It whispers to me that Gaza will endure, and that one day we will return to the north to rebuild, stone by stone, raising our homes again with our own hands. That voice tells me this land will remain free and proud, no matter how long the destruction lasts, and that all this pain is but a chapter in the story of resilience.

Gaza is bleeding today, but it will not break. The Gaza I bid farewell to—with hope of return—will always remain in my heart a symbol of dignity and pride, until every displaced person comes home, every child returns to school, and every family reunites with its memories.

(The Palestine Chronicle)

– Shaimaa Eid is a Gaza-based writer. She contributed this article to the Palestine Chronicle.