‘Anyone who goes near the water risks his life. But if we leave the sea, we die’
Sons help their fathers while fishing on the beach of Deir Al-Balah, central Gaza, 7 December 2024
Ruwaida Kamal Amer reports in +972 on 11 March 2025:
For 17 months, Ahmed Al-Hissi, a 54-year-old fisherman from Gaza’s Al-Shati refugee camp, hasn’t touched his fishing rod. It remains in the storage room by the port where he stashed it shortly after Israel launched its onslaught on the Strip, and he hasn’t dared retrieve it — even after the ceasefire took hold.
“We have large families, and fishing is our only source of income,” he explained to +972 Magazine. “We are still waiting for the [Israeli] army to allow us to fish.”
For years, Gaza’s fishermen have had to contend with ever-shrinking fishing zones imposed as part of Israel’s blockade of the territory. But after October 7, the industry ground to a complete halt, with Israeli naval ships regularly opening fire at anyone who entered the sea. “My sons tried to fish from the beach, and they were still shot at,” Al-Hissi recounted.
After the ceasefire went into effect in January, Al-Hissi, who has been fishing since his teens, went back to the port with his sons in the hope of returning to work. They found a scene of utter devastation: all the boats in the harbor had been destroyed. “There was nothing,” he said. “We need to start from scratch.”
Indeed, precious little remains of Gaza’s once-thriving fishing industry after a year and a half of Israeli bombardment.