For most of his life, the sea had been Ramadan Zeidan’s refuge. It fed his family, shaped his routine, and offered a measure of dignity in a land where so little is left. But last week, the waters he once trusted delivered him back to shore in pieces.

At 60 years old, Ramadan had endured years of siege, occupation, and war. A fisherman by inheritance and necessity, he had spent decades working off Gaza’s coastline, rising before the sun to cast his net. But the long war changed everything. With Israeli gunboats patrolling the waters, even approaching the shore became a risk to life. For over a year and a half, Ramadan’s boat remained idle, his nets untouched, his family hungry.

As famine gripped the Strip and flour became rarer than fish, desperation overcame fear. At dawn, with little more than hope and a tattered net, he set out from the beach near his refugee camp. He sailed only a short distance—unarmed, unthreatening, merely searching for a way to feed his grandchildren.

What followed was a brutal, familiar response. Israeli naval forces opened fire. Ramadan was torn apart. His body was found in two pieces, days apart, delivered by the waves to different shores. His nephew was wounded. The boat—now splintered—stands as a silent witness to the attack.

He was not the first. Palestinian fishermen have long faced violence at sea. In Gaza, a simple act of survival is criminalised. To seek food is to risk death. To resist is to be erased.

Ramadan’s killing reflects a broader pattern of collective punishment—a system where siege, starvation, and armed enforcement work in tandem to suffocate a people. Today, his family has no income, no justice, and only half a body to bury.

The sea that once offered life now carr

ies only loss.