According to the The Sunday Herald a Scottish human rights activist has caught a heinous crime committed by the Israeli navy firing machine guns at unarmed Palestinian fishing boats in the Mediterranean Sea off the coast of the Gaza Strip. It is mentioned that the footage was taken on September 6 by Andrew Muncie, who is from the Highlands, shows an Israeli gunboat engaging fishing boats while international observers hold their arms in the air and scream for them to stop firing.
It is reported that Palestinian fishermen claim14 colleagues have been murdered at sea by the Israeli navy sine the onset of an economic blockade imposed after Hamas took control of the Gaza Strip in June 2007. On the contrary Israel authority said that patrolling these waters is a vital security measure to stop weapons being smuggled into Gaza. Muncie, 34, of Dalbreagha, Spean Bridge, is working with the Free Gaza movement and arrived in Gaza last month as part of a group of 40 activists who sailed on two boats from Cyprus in an attempt to breach Israel’s blockade. He was accompanied by an 81-year-old nun, an 84-year-old holocaust survivor and Cherie Blair’s sister, Lauren Booth.
According to him the incident took place four miles out to sea at 9.30 am. He narrated that he has been out with the fishermen on several occasions and seen them the Israeli navy also use explosive shells fired from a cannon, and explosive charges flung into the water near a boat. Muncie claimed that in a separate incident on September 3, two fishermen were hospitalised and another fishing boat had been rammed and badly damaged in a separate incident last week. The Gaza Strip’s waters have been patrolled by the Israeli navy since a blockade was imposed after Hamas took control of the Strip.
