The Israeli Navy has arrested four Palestinian fishermen at sea off Rafah in the southern Gaza Strip. The captain of the fishermen, Nizar Ayyash, indicated that the Israeli navy captured two boats and the Egyptian army detained two fishermen with their boat.

The Union of Fishermen’s Committees in the Gaza Strip also stated that they “informed the competent authorities of the arrest of 4 fishermen from the Bakr family and the confiscation of their boats after they were shelled by the Israeli Navy in the central and southern seas of the Gaza Strip.”

For its part, the Israeli army said it arrested four Palestinians off the coast of Gaza overnight in what was suspected of a “smuggling attempt”, adding that “its forces acted in accordance with approved firing rules and that they captured two boats.”

An Israeli military spokesman said in a statement: “Four fishermen exceeded the permitted fishing area, which is 6 nautical miles south of the Gaza Strip, prompting the navy to move and ask those in it to return, but they did not . to react.”