Israel Questioning Three Foreigners Detained Off Gaza
Wednesday November 19th, 2008 / 11h18
JERUSALEM (AFP)--Israeli authorities were questioning on Wednesday three foreigners detained with Palestinian fishermen off the Gaza Strip and who will eventually be deported, police said. "They are being questioned. They are being held at a detention area near Ben Gurion airport," police spokesman Micky Rosenfeld said of the pro-Palestinian activists from the U.K., Italy and the U.S. "They are going to be extradited tomorrow, the next day, in a week or two, depending on whether they continue to refuse to show their ID," Rosenfeld told AFP. Briton Andrew Muncie, Vittorio Arrigoni from Italy and American Darlene Wallach were detained on Tuesday by the Israeli navy off the Gaza Strip coast together with the Palestinian fishermen they were accompanying. The Palestinian-led International Solidarity Movement said the 15 fishermen were released on Wednesday, but their three boats hadn't yet been returned to them. International volunteers have been going out to sea with Gaza fishermen to document attacks by navy vessels enforcing a strict Israeli blockade on the impoverished Palestinian territory. The Israeli military said the Palestinians and foreigners detained on Tuesday had "deviated from the fishing zone off the Gaza coast" and refused to turn back. But ISM said the boats were seven nautical miles from shore when confronted by the navy, pointing out this was well within the fishing limits set in the 1994 Oslo Accords between Israel and the Palestinians. "At no point, before they were transported by the Israeli navy into Israel, did the internationals enter internationally recognized Israeli waters." Under the Oslo accords, Gaza fishermen were allowed to go as far as 20 nautical miles offshore, but Israel has in recent years reduced this to six. U.K. lawmaker Clare Short said in a statement she asked Foreign Office Minister Mark Malloch Brown "to investigate the behavior of the Israeli navy who constantly attack and harass Gazan fishermen in a way which is surely illegal." Short was in Gaza last week, one of several dozen politicians and volunteers who have sailed from Cyprus to the Palestinian territory since Aug. 23 in defiance of the blockade. U.K. Baroness Jenny Tonge also urged the international community "to take action against Israel's consistent breaking of international law." "It was only last week that I personally met with the fishermen whose boats are illegally water-cannoned and fired upon by Israeli gunboats as they peacefully fish in Gaza waters," she said in a statement. Click here to go to Dow Jones NewsPlus, a web front page of today's most important business and market news, analysis and commentary: http://www.djnewsplus.com/al?rnd=UTizz9U0BZpMDUM9Mn6yxQ%3D%3D. You can use this link on the day this article is published and the following day.
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