Israel has banned Palestinians from fishing off the coast of the Gaza Strip, the head of Gaza's fishermen's union told Sputnik on Tuesday, after a massive exchange of cross-border fire
GAZA (Pakistan Point News / Sputnik - 12th November, 2019) Israel has banned Palestinians from fishing off the coast of the Gaza Strip, the head of Gaza's fishermen's union told Sputnik on Tuesday, after a massive exchange of cross-border fire."Israel told the Palestinian Association of Palestinian Fishermen that the sea was off-limits until further notice," Zakaria Baker said.
Israel has routinely responded to rocket launches from Gaza by reducing the permissible fishing area, which sustains the Palestinian exclave's struggling population.
Confrontation between Israel and the Hamas-controlled Gaza escalated early on Tuesday after Israeli airstrikes killed the leader of the Palestinian Islamic Jihad militant group, triggering a fierce response. The Israeli military said it had registered 50 launches from Gaza, 20 of which were intercepted.
A spokesman for the German Foreign Office said Berlin was "extremely concerned" about the situation in the Israeli-Gazan border region, in which it claimed a hundred rockets had been fired at Israeli cities in the past hours. The ministry called for restraint and Egypt- and UN-backed mediation.
