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Shots fired at Israel navy boat from Gaza coast

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An Israel Navy patrol boat was fired upon yesterday from the shore of the Gaza Strip during an arrest operation at sea.

The incident began when Israeli forces spotted a boat which had deviated from the permitted fishing limits in the Mediterranean Sea, off the northern coast of the Gaza Strip. An Israeli patrol boat requested that the boat halt, but it continued to advance.

An IDF statement said that warning shots were fired, but when the boat still failed to stop, “forces fired toward the area of the vessel to stop their advance, wounding a suspect”. Nizar Ayyash, head of the local fisherman’s union, told the Palestinian Ma’an news agency that Israeli forces had deployed “heavy fire”.

The wounded Palestinian man was taken to a hospital in the Israeli city of Ashdod, while his boat was permitted to return to Gaza waters. However, while the incident unfolded, “shots were fired at naval forces from the Gaza Strip,” according to an IDF spokeswoman. No further details were given, but it appears that nobody was injured and that Israeli forces did not return fire.

The incident came just days after a rocket was fired from the Gaza Strip into the southern Israeli town of Sderot. The rocket landed between two houses without causing any damage. Israel responded with an unusually heavy air bombardment of Hamas-affiliated strategic targets in Gaza.

Israel has imposed a limit on naval activity off the Gaza coast since Hamas seized control of the territory in 2007, fearing that boats will be used to smuggle weaponry and other military-related equipment into the Gaza Strip. Although a number of vessels have been intercepted smuggling arms, Israel recently extended the fishing limit from six to nine miles off the Gaza coast.