By Hosni Nadim
GAZA CITY, Palestine (AA) — Israeli naval forces on Saturday targeted a Palestinian fishing boat off the coast of southern Gaza, damaging the vessel.
"An Israeli military boat opened heavy fire at a Palestinian fishing boat, while the fisherman tried to avoid the gunfire and quickly rowed his boat out of the sea," an Anadolu correspondent reported on the incident, which occurred off the coast of the Gaza Strip city of Khan Younis.
The continued Israeli fire severely damaged the fleeing craft before the fisherman on board could return to shore, the correspondent added.
Amid severe food shortages in the Gaza Strip as Tel Aviv continues its onslaught on the territory, Israeli naval forces have severely curtailed Palestinian fishing activities off the besieged and blockaded enclave's Mediterranean coast.
The bodies of two Palestinian fishers were recovered on Nov. 9, killed in an Israeli attack targeting their boat off the city of Rafah in southern Gaza.
The UN Agency for Palestinian Refugees (UNRWA) has warned that the population in the northern Gaza Strip is "on the brink of famine and has no place to go" due to the ongoing war.
Israel has pounded the Gaza Strip since an Oct. 7 cross-border attack by the Palestinian group Hamas. The ensuing Israeli war has killed more than 29,600 people and caused mass destruction and shortages of necessities. Nearly 70,000 people have been injured.
Around 1,200 Israelis are believed to have been killed in the Hamas attack while over 200 were taken back to Gaza as hostages.
The Israeli war on Gaza has pushed 85% of the territory's population into internal displacement amid acute shortages of food, clean water and medicine, while 60% of the enclave's infrastructure has been damaged or destroyed, according to the UN.
Israel is accused of genocide at the International Court of Justice. An interim ruling in January ordered Tel Aviv to stop genocidal acts and take measures to guarantee that humanitarian assistance is provided to civilians in Gaza.
Hostilities have continued unabated, however, and aid deliveries remain woefully insufficient to address the humanitarian catastrophe.
*Writing by Ikram Kouachi