The sea in Gaza is no longer a promise of life; it has become a boundary between livelihood and death. Along the coastline, where fishing once unfolded as a daily story of labor and endurance, the blue horizon has been transformed into a space besieged by fire. A systematic policy of strangulation is being enforced, targeting one of the oldest pillars of Gaza’s economy and food security. In this harsh phase, fishermen’s boats no longer carry nets alone, but fear, waiting, and the risk of return — if they return at all — without sustenance or without their owners.
A Confiscated Sea… A Profession Under Target
Since the onset of the ongoing assault, violations against fishermen have escalated unprecedentedly: live fire, pursuit, arrest, and the confiscation of boats and equipment, alongside suffocating restrictions on fishing zones. What once sustained thousands of families has turned into a daily gamble with death, detention, and loss. The sea, long a social and economic lifeline, has been redefined as an open field of direct targeting, within a policy aimed at dismantling the fishing sector and drying up sources of livelihood.
Martyrs, Wounded, and Detainees
Zakaria Bakr, head of the Fishermen’s Committees, confronts reality with stark figures: 32 fishermen killed, dozens injured, and 28 fishermen still held in detention. Monthly losses are estimated at around five million dollars due to halted work and the paralysis of maritime activity. These losses directly affect nearly five thousand families who rely on fishing as their primary source of income, extending to supporting sectors such as fish trade, net-making, transportation, and refrigeration.
According to Bakr, total losses are approaching 700 million dollars, following widespread destruction of infrastructure, including the fishermen’s building, small fishing boats, vehicles, and all equipment tied to the profession. Even the minimal allowances — a few meters granted to some small boats — do not spare fishermen from gunfire, arrest, or confiscation. “Fishermen are literally working under the threat of death,” Bakr says, warning of a complete collapse of the sector if these practices continue, in blatant disregard for international law and civilian protection standards.
Back to Before Zero
Nizar Ayyash, Mayor of Deir al-Balah and former head of the Palestinian Fishermen’s Union, believes fishermen have been pushed back to a point before zero. Not merely because the profession has stalled, but because its entire system has been destroyed. Gaza’s main port has been demolished; boats, nets, and engines wiped out; spare parts banned; and repair rendered impossible by military force. Harbors have turned into deserted spaces, boats into skeletal remains, and fishermen into helpless observers before a sea sealed by weapons.
Poverty today, Ayyash explains, is not a statistic but a pervasive condition. Thousands of families are without income or alternatives, forced into debt or reliance on scarce aid, as the social fabric tied to the sector — workers, vendors, traders, and craftsmen — steadily erodes. “What is happening is not collateral damage,” he stresses. “It is a deliberate policy to starve people, break their resilience, and strike a productive sector with deep economic, social, and nutritional significance.”
A Policy of Deprivation… and the Sea’s Cry
In Gaza, the sea itself has become a source of fear rather than life. Fishing is entirely prohibited, and when nominally permitted in the past, fishermen faced arrest, gunfire, and confiscation. It is a tightening noose around a profession, a memory, and the food future of a besieged city. With the siege, aggression, and obstruction of reconstruction ongoing, hope for reviving the sector in the near term continues to fade.
When the sea is sealed by force, it is not only nets that are confiscated — life itself is seized. Today, Gaza’s fisherman stands between a wave he is forbidden to touch and gunfire that awaits him if he approaches. With every seized boat and every detained fisherman, it becomes clear that the struggle is not over fishing limits, but over a fundamental right to work, to live, and to dignity. Saving the fishing sector is no longer a professional demand; it is an urgent humanitarian necessity. Opening the sea to fishermen is opening a window of life for a city whose horizon has been choked — still waiting for justice that recedes with every tide.
