Dozens of rays were hauled onto the Gaza beach in the early hours of Thursday by fishermen who say that they have not had such a catch in years.
While this is the season for rays, also known as 'Devil Fish', the quantity that the Gaza fishermen dragged on to the beach is much larger than usual.
Following an Egyptian brokered truce after violence between Israel and the Hamas controlled Gaza Strip, Gaza's fishermen have been allowed to fish further out to sea, and fishing in deeper waters has led to bigger hauls of many types of fish.
Fisherman Abu Mahmoud said the weather also played an important part in catching fish.
Big and heavy, the rays were dragged from the small fishing boats and laid out on the beach in rows, many fishermen working in pairs due to the rays size.
At sunrise, once the rays were laid out on the beach, horse and carts were brought to the shore and the fish were cut up and taken to markets across the Gaza Strip as the haul was too large to meet the needs of Gaza City alone.
The rays are sold fairly cheaply, one kilo costs 10 shekels (2 US dollars), as not too many Gazans are big fans of the slimy creatures.
They are known as the sea food for the poor in Gaza, with different myths about the various benefits of the creatures' different parts.
While the fishermen's lives have improved, they hope for a return to a 12-mile limit agreed in the Oslo peace accords in 1993 to secure their livelihoods and price out Egyptian imports. But indirect talks between Hamas and Israel in Cairo have stalled and political turmoil in Egypt hampers their resumption.
Gaza has been under a land and sea blockade by Egypt and Israel since Hamas seized power there in 2007 and efforts by activists to access the enclave by sea have been met with Israeli force, most notably 2010 when Israeli forces killed nine Turks on a Gaza-bound aid ship, the Mavi Marmara.
There are about 3,700 full-time fishermen in the Gaza Strip serving 1.7 million Palestinians. In less tense times, they used to export to Israel. Now Gaza imports about 80 percent of its fish fromIsrael and from Egypt via smuggling tunnels
