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Κυριακή 14 Φεβρουαρίου 2010

Egyptian Navy arrests Gaza fishermen


Sat, 13 Feb 2010 18:10:15 GMT
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A Palestinian fisherman is seen at sunrise at the port in Gaza City Sunday, Feb. 7, 2010.
Egypt's Navy arrests four Palestinian fishermen near the coast of the Gaza Strip as Cairo further restricts the blockaded sliver's sources of livelihood.

An official with Hamas' security forces said the arrests had been made on Friday near the divided border town of Rafah in southern Gaza, AFP reported.

Hamas' agriculture ministry said the four were arrested while "doing their job" and called on Egypt to stop "oppressing" the Palestinian fishermen. Security officials on the Egyptian side of Rafah denied the arrests.

Israel has restricted the Gazan fishing territory from the 20 nautical miles, agreed under the Oslo agreement between Tel Aviv and the Palestine Liberation Organization in 1993, to just three nautical miles today.

More than four miles of Gaza's coastline has also been deemed contaminated due to the overflow of the strip's sewage system, which is dysfunctional due to the Israeli siege that has been in place for almost three years.

As Israel controls the access to the territory by sea and air, Egypt keeps shut the Rafah border crossing — the sliver's only border that bypasses Israel. The Egyptian authorities claim that the border post is an Egyptian-Israeli crossing and should not be used without Tel Aviv's permission.

The Egyptian government is additionally building a steel wall along the Gaza border to prevent the transfer of any goods into the strip.

Egypt is also to block the seaborne Gaza-bound supplies by stepping up security measures at its maritime border with Gaza. 

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