How Gaza's fishermen get caught in Israel's nets

How Gaza's fishermen get caught in Israel's nets
Exclusive: The New Arab reveals how the Israeli Shin Bet intelligence agency uses threats, coercion and inducements to force hard-hit Gazan fishermen to collaborate and offer information on Palestinian resistance.
5 min read
23 May, 2016
Gaza's fishermen are being coerced by Israel to become spies [Getty]
The wife of Ahmed Hamed, a fisherman from Gaza, could not believe her ears when she was told via telephone that she had been hired for a termporary job. The man, who claimed to represent a regional charity, told her to call him later for details about salaries and arrangements.

She was initially pleased with the possible lifeline for her impoverished family, whose situation has been made much worse by Israel's blockade and restrictions on fishermen like her husband.

Since 2010, Israel killed 12 Palestinian fishermen, and wounded 100 others, in addition to detaining 420, with the most recent fisherman arrest being on Sunday May 15, according to the Fishermen's Syndicate in Gaza.

The family soon felt suspicious. After making some inquiries, she and Ahmed found out three similar calls had been made out to other fishermen's families.

Hamas' Internal Security service would later tell them the caller was an officer in the Israeli Shin Bet intelligence agency, looking to recruit them as spies.
Often, the fishermen are taken to interrogation in Ashdod after their equipment is seized or destroyed.
A web of blackmail

The New Arab conducted 40 interviews with fishermen and cross-referenced the information they provided with three different Palestinian security agencies.

It appears that the Shin Bet uses a number of approaches to recruit the fishermen, including harrassing them and their families via telephone and detaining them for hours at sea.

During the fishermen's detention, they are blackmailed, forced to choose between freedom and being allowed to fish in return for collaborating with Israel, or live in poverty and/or jail.

Often, the fishermen are taken to interrogation in the port of Ashdod after their equipment is seized or destroyed.

One of those who were subjected to blackmail is Ahmed al-Najjar (44 years). Najjar refused to collaborate with the Shin Bet, which offered him fishing and sailing priviliges in return for information on resistance groups in Gaza.

Otherwise, the Israelis told him, his boat would be destroyed and his equipment would be confiscated, which is what happened in the end.

The Shin Bet also attempted to recruit Mahmoud Shaker, another fisherman. After he was detained, he was taken to Ashdod, where the Shin Bet agents sought to convince him to collaborate, again in return for financial inducements and fishing rights. He was released two days later, after his equipment was seized.
Israel wants to use the fishermen to spy on Hamas' naval activities.
Dead drops

The resistance's intelligence services in Gaza known as Al-Majd were able to apprehend a fisherman who was collaborating with Israel, described by a Palestinian security source as the most dangerous "marine spy" to ever be caught.

In email exchanges with The New Arab, the source said the 37-year-old captured spy started working with the Shin Bet in 2010. His recruitment followed the same pattern: he was detained at sea and blackmailed, but he agreed to do Israel's bidding in Gaza.

The Israeli agent was told to transport funds and equipment for other agents, and leave them in dead drops at sea. The agent monitored resistance operatives during the Israeli assault on Gaza in 2012 and 2014, and supplied information on resistance activities in his area of residence, including the names of resistance cadres he communicated to the Shin Bet.

The authorities in Gaza, the source said, have since been holding educational sessions with fishermen to explain the methods of Israeli intelligence. The fishermen are even coached in simulations on how to deflect the attempts of Shin Bet officers.

Meanwhile, any fisherman who is detained or blackmailed by the Israelis is interviewed by the authorities for debriefing, according to the source from Al-Majd.
The Israeli army has deployed a quasi-permanent Shin Bet officer on every gunship, to help detain and interrogate fishermen at sea or at Ashdod.
The New Arab corroborated the revelations with another source in a key Palestinian resistance group.

"The Israeli army has deployed a quasi-permanent Shin Bet officer on every gunship, to help detain and interrogate fishermen at sea or at Ashdod," said the source, who asked not to be named.

The majority refuse to collaborate, even after they are threatened, the source added.

A sea of intelligence

Israel meets with collaborating fisherman often by detaining several boats carrying dozens of men, including the intended collaborators, to camouflage their identities, the source in the resistance, who is a field commander, said.

The men are then interviewed separately, to avoid raising suspicions. 

The Shin Bet is seeking out the Palestinian fishermen because of the shortage of human cadres that can supply intelligence and the limited interaction with Gazans, according to Col. Dr. Ibrahim Habib, an Israeli affairs expert.
The Shin Bet is seeking out the Palestinian fishermen because of the shortage of human cadres that can supply intelligence and the limited interaction with Gazans.
"The occupation relies on the Erez Crossing and the sea to reach people (in Gaza) and coerce them to collaborate," he told The New Arab.

Israel also believes Hamas is developing its naval capabilities, which explains why it wants fishermen to be its eyes on the resistance's marine activities, he added.

"The Israelis are afraid Hamas's marine commandos could infiltrate gas fields in Ashkelon or reach the shore near Zikim, where Hamas carried out a famous operation in 2014," said Adnan Abu Amer, a security expert.
More than 4,000 fishermen work off the coast of Gaza in difficult conditions amid Israeli and Egyptian restrictions.

Thousands in the cross-hairs

More than 4,000 fishermen work off the coast of Gaza, according to Nizar Ayash, head of the Palestinian Fishermen's Syndicate.

"Attacks (on fishermen) have escalated since 2015 in both frequency and quality, to coerce fishermen," he told The New Arab

Up to 70 percent of all fishermen have been directly assaulted, detained, or had their equipment taken from them by Israel, while 100 percent were indirectly hassled by being denied access to the sea, he added. Most of them live in abject poverty as a result.

According to The New Arab's estimates, nearly 15 percent of fishermen in Gaza have left the trade because of Israeli harrassment.

Since 2014, Israel seized 36 Palestinian fishing boats. Similar numbers were confiscated in 2012 and 2013, according to Jihad Salah, the official in charge of fisheries in the Gaza Ministry of Agriculture.

Salah downplayed a recent Israeli decision to expand Gaza's fishing zone, saying the decision excludes the areas richest in fish stocks.

Gazan fishermen are now allowed to sail along 37 km of the Strip's 42-km shore. Both Israel and Egypt have established buffer zones in the south and the north respectively that are off-limits to Gazans.

Original Arabic investigation by Mohammed al-Jamal
Edited translation by Karim Traboulsi