GAZA CITY: A Palestinian fisherman was fatally injured when his boat collided with an Egyptian security vessel off southern Gaza at dawn on Wednesday, Palestinian witnesses and medics said.
Mohamed Al-Bardawil, 41, suffered severe head injuries as the two boats collided off the coast of Rafah, the sprawling city which straddles the Gaza Strip’s border with Egypt, they said.
He was pulled out of the water by fishermen in the area who rushed him to Rafah hospital but he died on the way, witnesses said.
His 19-year-old son Ahmed and another three fisherman who were also on the boat suffered light injuries in what they said was a deliberate attempt to ram them by the Egyptian security vessel.
"The Egyptian security forces tried to arrest us but we tried to get away, then the crash happened," the son told AFP by telephone. "They did it on purpose."
The Hamas-run agriculture ministry, in a statement, condemned the incident as "a serious crime" and called for the Egyptian government to launch an investigation into Bardawil’s death.
Egyptian security said the collision was an accident caused by the fact that it was dark and that the Palestinian boat did not clearly identify its position.
"The Egyptian boat approached the Palestinian boat to warn it and ask it to leave Egyptian waters, but the boats collided because the Palestinian boat did not have its lights on and it was dark," a security official told AFP.
"The Palestinian boat did not give any warning light or sound signals to the Egyptian boat to clearly identify its position," the official said. "It was a mistake."
Palestinian fishermen have in past months been working in Egyptian waters to "smuggle" fish into the impoverished coastal strip, which has been under a crippling blockade since the Islamist movement Hamas seized control in 2007.
