GAZA CITY, Gaza Strip — Mahmoud Abu Riyala, a young fisherman from Gaza City, returned to the sea March 23 after nearly a month off of work, despite the unhealed shrapnel wounds in his chest and hands from an Israeli naval patrol shooting at him off the Gaza coast Feb. 25.

His cousin Ismail Abu Riyala, 18, was not as lucky. He was shot dead by the patrols while both young men were fishing off the coast of the northern Gaza Strip.

Fishermen in Gaza were outraged by Abu Riyala’s killing, which they see as a serious threat to their own lives. They suspended their fishing trips for two to three days. The Israeli side held Abu Riyal's body for two weeks before his father recovered it March 14 from the Beit Hanoun checkpoint.

Mahmoud Abu Riyala, who has been fishing for six years since he was a young teen, witnessed firsthand how his cousin was killed. “We went off on a fishing trip in the afternoon on Feb. 24. The next morning, Israeli naval patrols … were circling the boat and taking photos of it. We were 5 miles from the shore," within the permitted fishing zone, he told Al-Monitor.