Ikhwanweb :: The Muslim Brotherhood Official English Website

The ministry of agriculture reported Tuesday morning that three international activists and 16 Palestinian fishermen have been kidnapped in Palestinian waters by the Israeli navy.

In a statement received by the PIC, the ministry explained that the three activists were aboard three fishing boats with Palestinian fishermen when they were attacked by Israeli gunboats at 10:00 am local time.

The three internationals are Andrew Muncie from Scotland, Darlene Wallach from the US and Victor Arrigoni from Italy.

The ministry held Israel fully responsible for the lives of the activists and the fishermen, denouncing the repeated Israeli assaults on them during their work.

"They were fishing seven miles off the coast of Deir Al-Balah, clearly in Gaza fishing waters and well within the fishing limit detailed in the Oslo accords of 1994," the Free Gaza Movement said.

Ihab Al-Ghussein, the spokesman for the Palestinian interior ministry, stated in a press release received by the PIC that the Israeli serious violations of the truce and the continued escalation against Gaza and the Palestinian people confirm the falsehood of Israel"s claims that it wants the calm to continue.

In this regard, Ghussein called on the Palestinian factions to hold an immediate meeting to reevaluate the truce and take the appropriate decision unanimously.

In another context, the wife of Iyad Salim, a Palestinian citizen injured severely three years ago during an Israeli aerial attack, appealed to Egyptian president Hosni Mubarak to urgently intervene and allow her husband to receive medical treatment in Cairo.

The wife explained that her husband has been suffering from partial paralysis and convulsions in the brain and nerves and lost one of his eye when Israeli warplanes bombed the Jabaliya refugee camp three years ago.

In a written appeal received Tuesday by the PIC, the wife said that as a result of his deteriorating health condition, her husband was transferred from Gaza to Cairo to receive medical treatment, but the Egyptian security apparatuses detained him along with other patients in a building in the Egyptian Giza governorate without receiving any confirmed information about his fate.