Blast kills 3 Palestinian fishermen off Gaza coast

Palestinian fishermen pick through their nets on the beach in Gaza Strip, Aug. 10, 2014. (AFP Photo) Israel is to extend the distance off the coast of Gaza that some of the Palestinian territory's fishermen are allowed to operate from April 3, 2016, their trade union said. Fishing boats working out of ports in the southern part of the Gaza Strip will be allowed up to nine nautical miles off the coast, the chairman of the Gaza fishermen's union, Nizar Ayyash, said. / AFP PHOTO / ROBERTO SCHMIDT

by ASSOCIATED PRESS

Mar 07, 2021 1:22 pm

Three Palestinian fishermen were killed Sunday after a blast ripped through their boat off the Gaza shore, union officials said. Nezar Ayyash, of the fishermen syndicate, said the anglers – two brothers and a cousin – were plying their trade off the coast of the city of Khan Younis in southern Gaza Strip when the explosion happened, as The Associated Press (AP) reported.

The cause of the blast was not immediately clear. Palestinian media reports blamed the Israeli navy fire, but the Israeli military said it was not involved in this incident. The Hamas-run interior ministry in Gaza said it opened an investigation.

"The three men were martyred when a missile fell on their boat in the Mediterranean Sea off the shores of the southern Gaza Strip," Nizar Ayyash, the head of the Palestinian Union of Fishermen, said, according to remarks carried by Anadolu Agency (AA).