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Israeli naval forces arrested four Palestinian fishermen on Sunday night in the sea off the coast of Rafah city, located in the south of Gaza,Ìýaccording to Palestinian officials.

"We lost contact with four fishermen after the Israeli navy fired at their boats in the Rafah sea,"ÌýZakaria Baker, an official from the fishers' committees in the Union of Agricultural Work Committees in the Gaza Strip, said to °®Âþµº.

"The Israeli occupation's gunboats opened fire with machine guns towards the fishermen's boats operating west of Rafah," Baker added. "The Israeli naval insists on continuing their violations against local fishers to prevent them from making some money that would keep their families afloat."

The Israeli army claimed that the naval forces had arrested four Palestinians off the coast of the Gaza Strip "on suspicion that they were using a smuggling boat."

In Gaza, around 4,000 Palestinian fishers live in the besieged enclave. At the same time, approximately 40,000 Gazans work in professions directly or indirectly related to fishing, according to the Fishermen's Syndicate in the Gaza Strip.

The sector suffers immensely from the restrictions imposed by the Israeli naval forces, in addition to sudden bans related to the political relationship with the Gaza-run Islamic Hamas movement.

Moreover, Israel denies entry of several materials that it claimed were used for making weapons, including boats, fibreglass, nets and other essential materials used for fishing.