KHAN YOUNIS, Gaza Strip: After over a year of war in Gaza, Palestinian fishermen gather along the coastline, desperately casting their nets in hopes of catching enough for their families amid widespread hunger.
Since Israel began a military onslaught in Gaza after Hamas’ October 2023 attack, Israeli restrictions in the waters off the enclave have made life almost impossible for fishermen, who no longer sail out to sea and instead must stay by the shore.
In Khan Younis, Ibrahim Ghurab, 71, and Waseem Al Masry, 24, fish for sardines from the shoreline in front of a encampment of tents and makeshift shelters for those displaced by the war.
“Life is difficult,” Ghurab said. “One tries to secure food. There is no aid, we don’t receive anything anymore. In the beginning there was some (humanitarian) aid, very little, but now there is no more.”
Fishermen like Ghurab and Al Masry struggle daily to bring in even a modest catch to feed their families. There is rarely any fish left over from a daily haul to be sold to others.
Fishing was an important part of daily life in Gaza before the war, helping people eke out a living by selling their daily hauls in the market and feed the population.
But scant aid is reaching Gaza amid Israeli restrictions and frequent fighting, and many people have no income. The price of simple goods are largely out of reach for most.
“We have to come here and risk our lives,” Al Masry said, describing shootings by the Israeli military from the sea that he accused of targeting fisherman on the beach in Khan Younis.
Ghurab similarly said that Israeli military boats had fired upon fisherman at Khan Younis.
The Israeli military did not respond to Reuters requests for comment on the claims the military had shot at fishermen.
Israel’s retaliatory war against Hamas for the Islamist militant group’s deadly, cross-border attack on Oct. 7, 2023 has devastated densely populated Gaza and displaced most of the 2.3 million population.
Amid war and deep hunger, Gaza fisherman struggle to feed families
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Amid war and deep hunger, Gaza fisherman struggle to feed families
- Fishermen like Ghurab and Al Masry struggle daily to bring in even a modest catch to feed their families
Sudan paramilitary drone strike on school kills two children: medical source
- Since it began, the war has killed tens of thousands and left around 11 million people displaced
KHARTOUM: A drone strike blamed on Sudan’s paramilitary Rapid Support Forces killed two children and injured 12 others Wednesday in the southern city of El-Rahad, a medical source told AFP.
El-Rahad lies in Sudan’s Kordofan region, currently the fiercest battlefield in the war raging between the RSF and the regular army since April 2023.
“I saw a dozen students injured,” Ahmed Moussa, an eyewitness to the attack, told AFP, adding that the drone had struck a traditional Qur'anic school.
El-Rahad, in North Kordofan state, was retaken by the army last February, as part of a rapid offensive that saw it push west to break a long-running siege on state capital El-Obeid.
The RSF has been trying to re-encircle El-Obeid since, including by launching successive drone strikes on the main highway out of the city, which connects the western region of Darfur with the capital Khartoum.
Since it began, the war has killed tens of thousands and left around 11 million people displaced, creating the world’s largest hunger and displacement crises.
It has also effectively split the country in two, with the army holding the north, center and east while the RSF and its allies control the west and parts of the south.
