Palestinian killed by Israeli Navy after leaving fishing zone

The Gazan fishermen's union said Israeli forces fired on a fishing boat

A Palestinian fisherman paddles off the coast of Gaza City (Reuters)

Sunday 25 February 2018 

A Palestinian was killed on Sunday when Israeli forces opened fire on a boat from the Gaza Strip after it left a zone where Israel allows Palestinians to fish, officials said.

A spokeswoman for the Israeli army said the boat "deviated from the designated fishing zone in the northern Gaza Strip".

Naval forces called on the boat to halt, then fired warning shots in the air before shooting toward it when the three people on board did not stop, the spokeswoman said.

A severely wounded Palestinian later died from his wounds, she said. The other two Palestinians were detained by security forces.

The fishermen's union in Gaza said a boat with three fishermen was fired upon by Israel's military. 

Israel and Palestinian militants in Gaza, run by Islamist movement Hamas, have fought three wars since 2008 and the territory has been under an Israeli blockade for more than 10 years.

Fishing off the northern part of the strip, adjacent to Israel, is limited to six nautical miles offshore and the Israeli navy regularly fires at Palestinians at the zone's outer limit.

Last month a Palestinian fisherman was shot and killed by Egyptian forces and in May 2017 another fisherman was shot and killed by the Israeli navy. However, such incidents a rare.