“Then soldiers shot at our boat and hit the front part of it despite the fact that we were waving to the soldiers with our clothes so that they wouldn’t shoot at us.”
Adham Al-Habeel, 22, from Shati (Beach) refugee camp in Gaza City
“On 30 September 2009, after I prayed the Al-Fajr (dawn) prayer in the mosque, my father, my uncles and I went to the fishers' port in Gaza City. My brother, my cousin and two workmates were there. We all boarded my father's boat. The boat is 20 meters long and 5.75 meters wide. It cost us USD$ 60,000. At about 7:30am we started the boat and headed west for about 400 meters. The Israeli military boats were far away in the sea and I could scarcely see them. We spread our nets and moved the boat northwards dragging the fishing net for nearly half an hour until we were in front of Al-Sudaniya area in the north of the Gaza Strip. There, we changed the boat's track to the south.
After moving southward for nearly five minutes, I heard the sound of engines approaching. I looked behind me and saw two Israeli military boats which were flying the Israeli flag moving quickly towards us. They stopped about five meters away. I saw five soldiers wearing green military uniforms and holding automatic rifles on each boat. The soldiers began to shoot at the fishing boats that were beside us. I could hear the bullets hitting the bodies of the boats. Two boats beside us were hit. Then soldiers shot at our boat and hit the front part it despite the fact that we were waving to the soldiers with our clothes so that they wouldn’t shoot at us.
I kept looking at one of the military boats and I saw a soldier holding a grenade. He inserted it into a launcher which he directed towards us and fired. The grenade fell on our boat and set it on fire immediately. We jumped out of our boat into the sea and swam for about 20 meters to another boat and got on board. Then I saw the two Israeli military boats retreating toward the south. After that, we went by the boat that we were on to our boat that was on fire and tried to put the fire out. We couldn't control the fire because the fuel tank had caught alight. After about 15 minutes, I saw a big Israeli boat advancing towards our boat. They tried to extinguish the fire with a thin water pipe, but couldn’t. Then, many other boats and fishing runners [small fishing boats commonly known as hasaka in Gaza] belonging to our friends came to where we were and together we tied the burning boat to the other boats and towed it to the port. When we reached the port, four fire engines waiting at the shore extinguished the fire.”
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