Life Under Lockdown
By Jamal Mahjoub - August 17, 2012
What is striking about the Gaza Strip is the lack of a visible military presence. In the West Bank...Israeli Defense Force soldiers in green fatigues strut about with their automatic rifles at the ready...In Gaza...the military presence is not visible but it is there all the same. From the rooftop terrace of our hotel in Gaza City I stare at a row of harsh white spotlights far out at sea...Over the years the distance a Palestinian fisherman can go in search of a decent catch has been whittled down from the twenty-nautical-mile...to the three-mile limit imposed by the Israelis as of January 2009...It’s a dangerous task. Israeli patrol ships run circles around the smaller fishing boats so as to tip them over. They regularly fire upon fishing boats with live ammunition.
