HIS nets empty and his fibreglass hull perforated by machinegun bullets, Omar sits glumly on the shoreline contemplating the looming demise of the Gaza fishing industry.

Unable to afford the rising prices of lamb, beef and flour in their sealed-off coastal strip, Palestinians crowd their markets in search of fish. Now that poultry supplies are depleted by the threat of bird flu, the clamour for fish is even greater.

But, confronted by Israeli gunboats in fishing grounds they consider their own, the impoverished fishermen are unable to meet the demand.

The heart of the issue is the continued Israeli control of Gaza’s borders, airspace and waters, more than six months after it claimed to have ended its military rule of Gaza by evacuating 8,000 Jewish settlers and all its military bases.

A study by the United Nations’ World Food Programme (WFP), released this week, identifies Israeli restrictions on fishing boats as a key factor in the decline of an industry that, it says, could be finished by October 2007.

“While the Oslo accord agreed for fishing grounds extending to 20 nautical miles west of Gaza, the occupying power currently limits Palestinian fishing boats to 6 nautical miles,” the report says.

“A serious problem is that this shallow area close to the shore is where the fish come in to spawn.”

Yesterday the UN confirmed that half a million chickens in Gaza must be slaughtered because of exposure to bird flu, damaging the incomes of at least 200,000 poultry workers and their families. The added pressure of avian flu has, it said, “highlighted and enlarged an already critical situation faced by the fishing industry”.

Under the 1994 Oslo agreement, the 20 nautical miles should apply to all the Gaza coast bar two closed areas adjoining Israeli and Egyptian waters. Israel confirms that Palestinians are not allowed to fish the full 20 miles, citing security concerns over weapons smuggling and suicide bombers.

But officials insist that they are permitted out to ten nautical miles, and sometimes beyond, and accuse the fishermen of repeatedly trying to breach the mile-wide no-go areas. “In the last few years we have had several attempted suicide bombings against our patrol boats, and several times they have tried to go by sea to populated Israeli areas to try to carry out terror acts,” one Israeli naval officer said.

“There are a lot of attempts to smuggle weapons and explosives and the threat is still there. Just three months ago we stopped three attempts like this. These events happen on a day-to-day basis.”

The WFP report does not absolve the Palestinians from blame, identifying pollution from a heavy use of chemical pesticides and fertilisers as another cause of the industry’s problems. It also says that heavy nets damage the seabed, destroying young fish, crabs and other spawning species.

In Gaza City fishermen deny involvement in weapons smuggling, saying that Israel is using it as a pretext to punish the Palestinians for the five-year intifada, and for voting Hamas into power. Omar Salmi, 46, said that before 1987 — the first outbreak of serious violence — he regularly sailed as far as Port Said, in Egypt, and would spend up to eight days at sea, returning with groaning nets.

Now, he says, Israeli gunboats do not permit them to fish south of Deir al-Balah, halfway along the Gaza coast and, after major suicide bombings in Israel, have even blockaded the harbour. “It depends on the political situation,” he said, pointing to crudely patched bullet-sized holes in his hull.

“If things are calm, they will turn a blind eye and we can go even to seven or eight miles,” Omar said. “If they aren’t, they shoot at the fish to scare them, or shoot at us and arrest us.

“If an Israeli gets killed they will not let us out. As if we are the ones who killed him.”

When pressed, his friends concede that in the old days they smuggled from Egypt, finding it more lucrative than fishing. Denials that they ferried weapons are met with scorn by Israeli officials.

“In December 2005 we got into a battle with smugglers. . . we destroyed one boat loaded with explosives and weapons,” one naval officer said.

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