GAZA: Israel said Monday it is closing the fishing zone off the already blockaded Gaza Strip, preventing trawlers from going out to sea, after repeated rocket attacks on the Jewish state.
The move comes after the Israeli army said five rockets were fired from Gaza towards Israel overnight, two of which were intercepted by its air defences.
"The fishing zone in the Gaza Strip would be completely closed until further notice," said COGAT, the Israeli military body that administers civilian affairs in Palestinian territories including the occupied West Bank.
The measure was "due to the continuation of the rocket fire from the Gaza Strip towards the State of Israel during the night", it said in a statement.
Israel would hold the Islamist Hamas movement which controls Gaza "accountable for all that is done in and from the Gaza Strip towards Israel", COGAT said.
Hamas "will bear the consequences for the violence committed against the citizens" of Israel, it said.
Salvos of rockets were also fired at Israel from Gaza overnight Friday and again overnight Saturday, prompting Israel to carry out retaliatory air strikes on the coastal enclave.
Israel, which has imposed a blockade on Gaza for more than a decade, had set the fishing zone for the coastal enclave at 20 nautical miles following the Oslo peace accords in the 1990s.
But over the years Israel has reduced the size depending on tensions with Hamas.
In September the fishing zone was set at 15 nautical miles after an agreement between Israel and Gaza's rulers.
Israel closes Gaza fishing zone over rocket fire
https://arab.news/yttsv
Israel closes Gaza fishing zone over rocket fire
- The move comes after the Israeli army said five rockets were fired from Gaza towards Israel overnight
Iran, UK foreign ministers in rare direct contact
- A UK government source said Cooper “emphasized the need for a diplomatic solution on Iran’s nuclear program and raised a number of other issues”
TEHRAN: Iran’s Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi has spoken by phone with his British counterpart Yvette Cooper, an Iranian foreign ministry statement said on Saturday, in a rare case of direct contact between the two countries.
The ministry said that in Friday’s call the ministers “stressed the need to continue consultations at various levels to strengthen mutual understanding and pursue issues of mutual interest.”
A UK government source said Cooper “emphasized the need for a diplomatic solution on Iran’s nuclear program and raised a number of other issues.”
The source in London said Cooper raised the case of Lindsay and Craig Foreman, a British couple detained in Iran for nearly a year on suspicion of espionage.
The Iranian ministry statement did not mention the case of the two Britons.
It said Araghchi criticized “the irresponsible approach of the three European countries toward the Iranian nuclear issue,” referring to Britain, France and Germany.
The three countries at the end of September initiated the
reinstatement of UN sanctions against Iran because of its nuclear program.
The Foremans, both in their early fifties, were seized in January as they passed through Kerman, in central Iran, while on a round-the-world motorbike trip.
Iran accuses the couple of entering the country pretending to be tourists so as to gather information for foreign intelligence services, an allegation the couple’s family rejects.
Before Friday’s call, the last exchange between the two ministers was in October.
