Mr Muncie, 34, is a non-violent participant in a little-known battle between the state-of-the– art ships of the Middle East's most powerful military and the rickety motor boats of Gaza's fishing fleet.

"There were three or four bursts in the general direction of our boat," said Mr Muncie, who comes from Spean Bridge "In such a situation when we have cameras we start filming.

"Two hours later, at around 1pm, a large Israeli navy ship fired its water cannon against the boat for three or four minutes precisely when the fisherman were pulling in their nets," said yesterday.

Mr Muncie, who earns his living as an online poker player, said that the first incident occurred about nine miles off the Gaza coast but that other boats he has been on have been stopped by Israeli machine-gun fire just two or three miles off the coast

Israeli army officials declined to respond when asked to confirm the fishing limit.

The Israeli military says it takes action against the Gaza boats in order to thwart attempts to smuggle weapons and explosives into the Strip.

"Unfortunately, Gaza is turning more and more into a barrel of explosives, smuggled through the sea and through tunnels from Egypt," said Major Avital Leibovitch, an Israeli army spokeswoman.

But Mr Muncie and Israeli human rights groups say that Israel is harming innocent fishermen who are simply trying to make a living.

"Israel has the right to protect its population from threats, but these measures have an impact on a greater population instead of those involved in attacks," says Sarit Michaeli, a spokeswoman for Israel's B'tselem human rights group.

"The impact of this is to harm the economy. Fishermen can hardly leave shallow water before they are harassed."

Mr Muncie is one of six volunteers affiliated to the pro-Palestinian International Solidarity Movement who escort fishermen. He arrived in Gaza in August by boat from Cyprus. He plans to stay in Gaza for another two months, he said.

One fisherman, Mohammed Musleh, who was without a foreign escort, was seriously wounded in the leg by Israeli gunfire last month.

"The Israeli soldiers and higher commanders are quite well aware they can shoot Palestinian civilians without any recourse and even without negative publicity," Mr Muncie says. "They are aware that the same doesn't apply to foreigners like myself.

"You see the soldiers on the boat with large machine guns opening fire. The feeling is they are firing at you and your heart jumps. But in retrospect I don't believe they were trying to hit me, because if they wanted to they would have done so."

"All forms of non-violent resistance involve some calculated risk, what we do is a non-violent reaction to violent oppression and one has to accept these risks. The fishermen accept that they must face risks just to feed their families."

Mr Muncie first became interested in the Palestinian issue in 2002 when a television report prompted him to find out more about the conflict. He previously volunteered with the International Solidarity Movement in the West Bank.

Maj Leibovitch said any explosives smuggled into Gaza would end up being used against Israeli civilians.

"Unfortunately, our long and sad experience shows us there is no specific criteria for the average terrorist. It could be a fisherman, it could be a grandmother, it could be an educated scholar, it could be a woman who has a family. That's why we suspect different angles of the population."


BACKGROUND

ACCORDING to self-rule agreements that followed the historic handshake between Yitzhak Rabin and Yasser Arafat in 1993, Palestinians were to be allowed 20 nautical miles of fishing off the Gaza coast. A 2002 agreement between Israel and a United Nations envoy provided for 12 nautical miles. Fishing has been further limited since Hamas took control of the Gaza Strip in June 2007. This is despite Israel's official position that its occupation of the Gaza Strip ended with the withdrawal of settlers and soldiers in 2005. The water off the Gaza coast "is not considered legally Palestinian territorial waters because there is no state, no sovereignty", said an Israeli foreign ministry spokesman.