fields, one of which is 13 nm (24 km) from the Gaza shore.65 After the discovery of this ‘Mari-B’ gas field in 2000, Israel began to limit fishing zones to no more than six nm from shore, effectively creating a seven nm (13 km) security zone around the field.66 The size of this security zone is illegal not only because it prevents Palestinians from accessing their maritime zone but also because Mari-B and its gas platform lie one nm beyond the 12 nm (22km) limit to Israel’s territorial sea. According to international law, the maximum security zone that can be established around a platform existing outside territorial seas is 500 meters, or only 0.27 nm.67 Further evidence of the influence of gas fields on fishing restrictions is the maintenance of the six nm fishing limit even after the cessation of the 2014 war on Gaza. According to an Israeli navy commander: Immediately following Operation Protective Edge [the 2014 war], the Palestinians went back to commercial fishing. We enforce fishing bans in order to prevent irregularities. At this time the fishing zone range is six nm [11 km]. The Palestinians requested that it be extended to 12 nm [22 km]. Such extension will produce an operational problem, as it would place them substantially closer to the Tethys and Tamar offshore rigs [Tethys being the operator of the Mari-B rig], while we maintain a very intensive defense effort around those rigs.68 The imposed limits on fishing zones are enforced through almost daily illegal attacks on Gaza’s fishermen by the Israeli navy,69 including attacks on fishermen who are not in violation of the demarcated boundary.70 These attacks often involve the use of live ammunition, stun grenades, rocket fire,71 net cutting,72 and water cannons.73 Many fishermen are arrested and their boats confiscated, with 113 arrests and 48 boat confiscations made in 2016 alone.74 Some fishermen are able to recover their boats after paying a heavy 65 Susan Power, Israel’s Deadly Catch: Special Report for United Nations Business and Human Rights Forum 2015 on the Persecution of Fishermen in the Occupied Palestinian Territory, al-Haq, November 2015, 12, available at: http://www.alhaq.org/publications/Deadly.Catch.Report.pdf [hereinafter Power, Israel’s Deadly Catch]. 66 Id., 50. 67 Id., 52. 68 Id., 50. 69 Al-Haq, “Systematic Attacks Against Fishermen,” supra note 62. 70 Power, Israel’s Deadly Catch, 18, supra note 65. 71 Melon, Shifting Paradigms - Israel’s Enforcement of the Buffer Zone in the Gaza Strip, Al-Haq, June 2011, 11, available at: http://www.alhaq.org/publications/publications-index/item/shifting-paradigms-israels-enforcement-of-the-buffer-zone-in-the-gaza-strip [hereinafter Melon, Shifting Paradigms]. 72 Id., 17. 73 Al-Haq, “Five years into the illegal closure of the Gaza Strip,” 14 June 2012, available at: http://www. alhaq.org/advocacy/topics/gaza/588-five-years-into-the-illegal-closure-of-the-gaza-strip [accessed 18 August 2017] [hereinafter Al-Haq, “Five years into the closure”]. 74 B’Tselem, “Destroying Gaza’s Fishing Sector,” supra note 54. 29