Citizens’ Voice · 25 November 2012
CP-2012-021
Gaza fishermen experience no resistance from Israeli gunboats
Transcribed from the clipping
The mixed messages raised the question of whether Hamas might be trying to provoke the Israelis to break the cease-fire, or perhaps to establish new facts on the ground — farmers tilling the borderland, fishermen fishing farther out — that would increase its leverage in negotiations.
“Hamas is definitely trying to score points here,” said Mkhaimar Abusada, a political scientist at Al Azhar University in Gaza City. “Hamas is trying to say that the cease-fire is in the interest of Hamas and is in the interest of the Palestinians, that the cease-fire agreement is going to gradually put an end to the siege.”
Abusada noted that Mahmoud Zahar, a high-ranking Hamas leader, had told Arab-speaking reporters at a news conference that Gaza militants had shot down seven Israeli jets during the eight-day conflict, something Abusada called “a big lie.”
“We know this didn’t happen, so this is part of raising morale, part of playing with the emotions of Palestinians,” Abusada said, suggesting that the Hamas statement on fishermen and border zones had a similar purpose.
“It’s like waging psychological warfare on Israel, that Israel is giving in to the Palestinians, and also on the Palestinian side that Hamas won this war on all levels.”
Nizar Ayyash, the leader of the Gaza fishermen’s syndicate, said that after the Hamas statement, seven or eight large boats sailed out 6 miles into the sea on Saturday, encountering no resistance from Israeli gunboats that patrol the waters.
Ayyash said that even 6 miles out, the sea is too sandy, and that during sardine season, the best catch was about 15 nautical miles from the coast. “Any mile we gain is our right,” he added.
Cite this clipping
"Gaza fishermen experience no resistance from Israeli gunboats," Citizens’ Voice, 25 November 2012. Covering Palestine archive, CP-2012-021. https://coveringpalestine.org/archive/cp-2012-021
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Last updated 2 November 2026
This record is part of Covering Palestine, an archive of American newspaper clippings about Palestinians, 1724 to 2023. Researched and assembled by Maria Robles.
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