I preferred to write this post to show the extent of suffering lived by the Gaza fishermen and how the Israeli Intelligence attempts to recruit them in return to facilitating their work in the sea. Any fisherman refusing to collaborate with the Shabak could face one of three possible fates: Getting murdered, prosecuted, or becoming poorer. In fact, the Shabak has been recently extending their attempts even to recruit the members of families of Gaza fishermen through fake phone calls. I have heard recently the story of the wife of the fisherman Ahmed Hamed who received a phone call from someone claiming to be the representative of an Arabic charity. The caller told her that she was selected to get a temporary job and asked her to dial a number for getting more information about the salary and the procedures of starting the job. Ahmed's wife started for while to think that this could be a life saving opportunity for her family which has been suffering from extreme poverty since her husband was not allowed by the Israelis to practice his fishing job for several years. However, after a while, she started getting worried about phone call she received and decided to tell her husband about everything. When the husband, Ahmed, did some search about it, he discovered that three similar phone calls were received by the families of other fishermen and that the caller was just an officer from the Shabak which was assured by an investigation made by the local Palestinian security authorities.
One of the other fishermen who also faced an attempt of being recruited by the Shabak is the 44-year old Ahmed Najjar. He refused to collaborate with the Shabak despite the promises of being given a permission to practice his fishing at restricted areas in the sea. As a result of his refusal to work as a collaborator, he got his sailing tools and ship being completely destroyed by the Israeli Navy and got arrested for two days before being released.
According to the Association of Palestinian Fishermen, Ahmed's story is one of lots of similar stories of Shabak attempts to recruit fishermen as collaborators and that these attempts have been escalating since 2015. It has also been recorded that the Israeli Navy had killed 12 Palestinian fishermen since 2000, injured 100, and prosecuted 420 fishermen.
The continuous restrictions and barriers placed by the Israeli Navy in front of Gazan fishermen are believed to be important factors that play a major role in escalating the violence between the IDF and the militants in Gaza.
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