Wednesday morning April 24, 2013, Israeli Navy boats opened fire at a number of Palestinian fishing boats at the Gaza coast, an issue that forced them back to the shore without being able to fish, the Palestine News Network (PNN) has reported.Eyewitnesses said that the Navy fire dozens of live rounds into the air and a few rounds at the fishing boats while the fishermen were in the three nautical miles allotted to them by Israel.

The attack is similar to numerous attacks against the fishermen leading to dozens of casualties, arrests, and the destruction of fishing boats more than five years ago.

Under the Oslo accords in the mid-nineties, the Palestinians are allowed to fish in 20 nautical miles off the Gaza shore, but in 2008, Israel unilaterally reduced the fishing area to three nautical miles.

As part of the ceasefire agreement that ended the Israeli war on Gaza in November 2012, Palestinian fishermen were allowed to fish within six nautical miles off the Gaza coast, but the army continued to attack them in their allotted areas.