He greeted his friends passing by in a fluka --- a small, handcrafted wooden fishing vessel -- and lit the dynamite fuse in his hand.
He cannot remember much about the subsequent explosion; only that he couldn't see or feel anything afterwards. He recalls his panic in telling the Red Cross medics that his hands were destroyed, and that they said to him, "don't worry". It was only after multiple emergency operations in a Beirut hospital that he found that both his arms had been severed at the wrists, and that he had lost an eye.
Three years later Ismael sits in one of the raucous, smoke-filled cafes along the ancient fishing harbour amidst piles of netting and docked flukas, playing cards and smoking with the help of friends, and waiting for an operation to outfit prosthetics where his hands once were. He is a reminder of how dangerous the widespread practice of fishing with dynamite can be, and its devastating consequences for Lebanon's fishermen.
"All the fishermen here are poor and their work is very difficult," says Khalil Taha, president of Tyre's fishermen's syndicate, which represents a mixed Christian and Muslim population of over 600 men and 200 vessels, in an otherwise Shia dominant town. "In the past we had to deal with the Israeli boats (during the occupation of south Lebanon). Since 2000 we don't have the Israelis, but the fishermen work illegally -- their small nets are illegal, and they have destroyed the sea with dynamite."
He sighs. "We have no more fish -- now the Mediterranean Sea is poor. But we also don't have the government to help," he says about the current political crisis in Beirut, which has paralyzed the country for over a year now.
The narrow alleyways, and crumbling, whitewashed stone houses surrounding the antiquated fishing port make up Tyre's most impoverished neighborhood. "Until the 1950s everyone was living in the old town," says Ali Bedawi, caretaker of Tyre's historical sites and a 2.5 million dollar World Bank fund to rehabilitate the harbor. "But in the 1960s you had a lot of extra services and the rich people started to leave to the new town. So who stayed? The poorer classes whose houses were inherited -- especially the fishermen."
Their fragile subsistence was highlighted during the summer 2006 conflict with Israel, when the violence prevented them from working for up to two months. "Afterwards Hezbollah gave 300 dollars to each fisherman's family in Lebanon," recalls Taha, who flies the yellow Hezbollah flag above the dilapidated syndicate office.
"The government told us they would give 2,000 dollars to each fisherman spread over ten months," he says. "However, they gave us for two months and then stopped. So we went up to Beirut and asked them about this, and they said they had no more money. But we know they do, while we have none."
Fishing is passed on through generations here, and hardworking men like 23-year-old Raymond Khoury bring home on average 10 dollars a day. Khoury sacrificed his schooling to fish the past eight years, finally saving up 4,500 dollars to buy his own small fluka and support his wife and child.
Loaded down with the small nets found on most vessels here, he leaves around three each morning and travels up to six miles out into the stormy winter sea. Near to the cordon of United Nations peacekeepers' ships stationed off Lebanon's shore, Khoury will work eight hours with his young brother to reach an acceptable quota before returning to the port.
"Seabream fetches the most money," says Sarjoun Mbayed, a former Tyre fisherman who recently worked with Italian charity Recerca e Cooperazione on ways to improve life for the fishing community. "So if the fishermen sell three kilos at 30 dollars at the end of their work, and pay out one-third for diesel, they split the remaining 20 dollars between them."
Mbayed believes Tyre's fish market is deeply troubled. "The fishmonger loans the fishermen about 300 dollars each annually for nets and maintenance, and in return the fishermen have to sell exclusively to him at a discount. There are four or five big markets here, and each one loans to about 10 or 15 boats. With seabream for example, the fishmonger will pay 10 dollars per kilo, and sell it for twice the price."
The combination of an increasing number of fishermen at sea, poor income and little government regulation has only fed the use of dynamite, as well as of small, indiscriminate nets to snare a day's profit. This in turn is destroying the seabed and rapidly emptying the ocean of fish, which are not given a chance to breed. "The fishermen here need to stop work for three months with government compensation, and have the fish replenish in March, April and May," says Charbel Doro, chef at the popular seaside Phoenician restaurant, and a lifelong fisherman himself.
Mbayed believes an auction system to replace the fishmongers is another imperative to break the vicious cycle. Like the bustling market in Sidon to the north, a strong cooperative would be able to sell directly to the buyer, and bring more money home for less product. "If you ask the fishermen what they need and want, they will say the auction," says Mbayed. "However, the fishmongers' monopoly is strong. No one helps the fisherman, I don't know why. Political forces in Lebanon want the fishermen to stay weak."
A gentrification project to attract tourists is optimistically planned for this summer, and the water and sewage system has already been replaced. However, most fishermen predict that the impact on their lives will be minimal, and the rising rents -- now fuelled by UN peacekeepers moving into town -- may even drive some out.
"The real problem is that there is no fish any more, says Mbayed. "And I think in ten years the fishing will stop. I once met an Italian expert who asked me about the fish and what methods we used. I told him how many fishermen were working between Sarafand and Naqoura (to Tyre's north and south), and he smiled and said, 'you are happy just to find salt water'."
Sources: IPS
Tags: Fishermen, Hezbollah, Lebanon, Mediterranean, Tyre
