Lebanese fisherman Mohammed Haidar inspects his net after coming back from a fishing trip in the Mediterranean Sea, in the port of city of Tyre, Lebanon, Sept. 13, 2006
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FRANCOIS MORI/AP
Fishermen in Lebanon’s coastal city of Sidon say they’re struggling to make ends meet after Israel warned everyone to stay away from sea.
The Israeli military warned residents to evacuate from over a dozen towns and villages in southwestern Lebanon, including the coastal town of Naqoura, where U.N. peacekeepers are headquartered.
“You have about 400 or 500 fishermen who need to make a living; they need to eat and feed their families,” Mohammed Baouje, a fisherman from Sidon said.
“If they don’t work for a day, they could end up begging on the street. Israel is banning us from going out to sea, which doesn’t make sense. What can we find in the sea? There’s nothing there to justify stopping the fishermen from going out,” he added.
Israel has called on people to evacuate several dozen communities across southern Lebanon, many of them north of a U.N.-declared buffer zone established after the Israel-Hezbollah war in 2006.
Israel says its operations are aimed at halting a year of Hezbollah rocket attacks so that tens of thousands of its citizens can return to their homes in the north.
Hezbollah has vowed to keep up the attacks until there is a cease-fire in Gaza.
The fighting, which escalated in mid-September, has displaced over 1 million Lebanese.
Additional sources • AP
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