Around 4,000 fishermen in the Gaza Strip on Thursday were able to go fishing in a zone of six miles, which will be expanded to nine miles next week, a senior Palestinian official said.
Nizar Ayyash, chairman of the fishermen union in Gaza, said in an emailed press statement that "since last night, fishermen in the Gaza Strip managed to catch 20 tons of different kinds of fish. "
He added that Israel allowed fishermen to go fishing in an area of six miles "which will be nine miles by next week and will increase to 12 miles within next months according to the agreement reached in Egypt on Tuesday."
During the past 51 days of the large-scale Israeli army air, sea and ground offensive on the Gaza Strip, 4,000 fishermen with around 1,000 fishing boats were unable to go fishing.
At the end of the 2012, Israel agreed to expand the fishing zone from three to six miles.
However, when two long tunnels going from Gaza into Israel were discovered, the Israeli army restricted the fishing area back to three miles.