The Israeli Occupation Forces (IOF) continue to intensify the naval blockade on the Gaza Strip, denying fishermen access to the sea and preventing them from carrying out their work, as they have become direct targets under unlawful and baseless security pretexts since the very first day of Israel’s ongoing military aggression. This blockade is part of a broader pattern of systematic Israeli measures aimed to tighten control over Palestinians, starve the population, and eliminate one of their last remaining sources of food. Israel’s actions reflect an entrenched policy of collective punishment and the continuation of the crime of genocide against more than two million Palestinians, who have been enduring deadly starvation and systematic attacks on their remaining means of survival for over 22 months.

On Saturday, 12 July 2025, the IOF issued a new warning announcing the imposition of strict security restrictions in the naval area adjacent to the Gaza Strip, effectively banning all access to the sea. The IOF further stated that any violation of these restrictions would be met with enforcement measures.¹ The Palestinian Centre for Human Rights (PCHR) stresses that this ban and the blockade on access to the sea have been in place since the very first day of the ongoing aggression and are not new measures.

PCHR has recently documented Israeli naval forces chasing fishermen attempting to fish only a few meters from the shore in a desperate attempt to stave off hunger amid the ongoing humanitarian catastrophe. Since the announcement of the recent sea closure, the IOF have arrested more than 20 fishermen, taking them to unknown destinations. Other fishermen have been directly targeted when IOF gunboats attacked and opened fire on their boats in multiple areas, resulting in numerous injuries and significant damage to their fishing equipment.

According to PCHR’s field follow-up, Gaza’s fishing sector has been subjected to a systematic destruction campaign since the beginning of the aggression. Fishermen have been killed, chased, and arrested, while most of their boats and equipment have been destroyed. Over the course of the ongoing aggression, the coastal fishing infrastructure has sustained massive damage, including the main Gaza Seaport, several smaller ports, fishermen’s rooms, and vital fishing equipment. As a result, more than 85% of the fishing sector’s assets in Gaza have been destroyed. These violations have had devastating consequences for thousands of families who depend entirely on fishing as their sole source of livelihood, leaving over 5,000 fishermen without any means to provide for their basic needs or access alternative income sources.²

Since the onset of the military aggression on the Gaza Strip, Israel has pursued a coercive policy of starvation aimed at subjugating the population. This has involved targeting all sources of food, including the agricultural sector, food production facilities, and water resources, while banning the entry of aid and goods into Gaza. These attacks have now extended to the sea and its fishery resources, reflecting through the sea closure a deliberate criminal intent to strip the population of its means of survival. This is part of Israel’s deadly starvation policy and comprehensive siege, imposed amid rapidly escalating levels of hunger and acute malnutrition across the Gaza Strip.

According to the latest Integrated Food Security Phase Classification (IPC) data, Palestinians in Gaza are now facing the worst levels of starvation ever recorded, with access to food dropping to unprecedented lows. This crisis has severely impacted children under five years of age, with 320 children—mostly under five—facing imminent risk of death due to malnutrition, while thousands more are showing advanced symptoms of hunger and acute malnutrition.³ Death rates related to hunger and malnutrition among children, infants, and adults have surged in recent weeks, as hospitals in Gaza have reported 162 deaths, including 92 children. This escalation comes amid the full collapse of the health system following the systematic targeting of hospitals and health centers and the ongoing blockade of the entry of essential medical supplies.⁴

PCHR affirms that Israel’s ongoing closure of the sea and its transformation into a prohibited military zone constitute yet another crime added to the Israeli occupation’s long record of international law violations, war crimes, and crimes against humanity committed since the start of its war on Gaza. Denying the population access to the sea and preventing them from engaging in essential maritime economic activities amount to a deliberate policy of starvation, which has become a core pillar of the ongoing genocide against the people of Gaza. This policy blatantly violates the 1949 Fourth Geneva Convention, which prohibits an occupying power from taking measures that amount to collective punishment against civilians, including imposing a tightened blockade or depriving the population of the means necessary for survival. Furthermore, Article 11 of the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights guarantees the right of every person to an adequate standard of living for themselves and their family, including adequate food, clothing, and housing.

PCHR warns that, through these measures, the Israeli occupation seeks to tighten its grip on the cycle of deadly starvation and deliberately destroy the conditions of life in Gaza, paving the way for the forcible displacement of the population and their eradication. This conduct falls under Article 2 of the 1948 Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide, which criminalizes the deliberate infliction of living conditions calculated to bring about the destruction of a group, in whole or in part. It also intersects with the arrest warrants issued by the International Criminal Court (ICC) against senior Israeli government officials for the commission of war crimes and crimes against humanity in Gaza, marking a serious addition to their long record of crimes. This escalation places an even greater responsibility on the international community to take immediate action to enforce these warrants and ensure that perpetrators are brought before international justice.

PCHR condemns in the strongest terms Israel’s continued denial of Palestinians’ access to the sea and warns of the catastrophic consequences of this policy on the health and food security of over two million people in Gaza. The population is already enduring mass starvation under one of the worst human-made humanitarian catastrophes ever witnessed in modern history.

PCHR calls on the international community, including the United Nations, its agencies, and the High Contracting Parties to the Fourth Geneva Convention, to take immediate and urgent action to end all forms of Israeli aggression, including the crimes of genocide and deadly starvation. Urgent measures are needed to prevent the irreversible entrenchment of this catastrophic reality and to ensure the immediate provision of international protection for the civilian population in the Gaza Strip, before it is too late to save what remains.

PCHR reiterates the urgent need to lift the land and sea blockade imposed on the Gaza Strip, reopen all border crossings, and establish safe humanitarian corridors to ensure their continuous and regular operation. This is essential to facilitate the flow of sufficient and sustained quantities of humanitarian aid, both food and non-food, to the population. PCHR also calls for an immediate end to the degrading and criminalized aid distribution mechanism imposed by Israel through the so-called “Gaza Humanitarian Foundation,” which poses a direct threat to the population’s lives, turning aid centers into sites where starving people are humiliated, mistreated, and even executed while seeking food for survival.

PCHR also underscores the urgent need to allow UN agencies, foremost UNRWA, and other international humanitarian organizations to freely carry out their mandates without restrictions. This is essential to ensure an effective and sufficient response to the deepening crisis in Gaza while safeguarding the population’s dignity, safety, and right to life.

PCHR reiterates its full commitment to documenting and exposing Israeli crimes before the international community and stresses that the global silence in the face of these atrocities signifies only one thing: complicity in the ongoing genocide against the population of the Gaza Strip, who have been left fighting for survival.

1. See: www.facebook.com/share/p/1AyLLvY9kZ/ ↩︎
2. See: Palestinian Centre for Human Rights:Link ↩︎
3. See UNICEF, “: Link ↩︎
4. The Palestinian Ministry of Health. ↩︎