UAE | General
Palestinian labourers trickle back to jobs in Israel
Hundreds of Palestinian migrant labourers trickled back to jobs in Israel yesterday, raising slim hopes that the economic hardships of the Palestinian uprising might gradually be eased.
- Reuters
- Published: 00:00 April 11, 2001
Hundreds of Palestinian migrant labourers trickled back to jobs in Israel yesterday, raising slim hopes that the economic hardships of the Palestinian uprising might gradually be eased.
In what it called a first step, Israel issued 3,200 new permits to allow Palestinians to return to work, mostly in orchards. About 750 had already held permits for the harvest.
"Today we actually start formally the labour programme for the Palestinians," said Yarden Vatikay, spokesman for the military-run Israeli Civil Administration. "This is the first stage of the plan of the continuous working project."
But only about 500 Palestinians crossed into Israel from the West Bank and Gaza Strip, and Palestinian officials saw the move as cosmetic, with more than 100,000 still blocked from jobs.
"It is not enough. It will not be a real easing or breakthrough in the closure", said Saed al-Mudallal, director general of the Palestinian Labour Ministry's employment section.
Israel sealed off the West Bank and Gaza Strip after the Palestinian uprising started on September 28, arguing that the measure was necessary on security grounds. Palestinians say the move is collective punishment.
For many Palestinians, how much food they can put on the table is directly tied to the security situation in the two areas, where most of the violence against occupation has raged.
At the Gaza Strip's Erez border crossing, about 370 Palestinians took advantage of the new permits on Tuesday.
They passed through the point just before Israel launched missile strikes on targets in the Gaza Strip in retaliation for Palestinian mortar bomb attacks on Jewish settlements. Others crossed from the West Bank, Vatikay said.
As the men and a few women passed the Erez crossing, Israeli soldiers tossed away the Palestinian workers' food bags rather than look inside to inspect them, because there was little time to process each labourer.
On the other side of the chain link fence, the Palestinian workers laid out clean mats in the parking lot to pray just before sunrise, or smoked as they searched for taxis to farms in Israel where they pick oranges for 100 shekels ($25) a day.
"Have you ever seen any other people living like we do?" said Abu Jelal, an unemployed Palestinian father of five. "I'm not only afraid as a Palestinian in Israel, I have no security in Gaza either. What kind of a future is that?"
Yesterday, one Palestinian police officer was killed and at least 17 people wounded when Israel launched missile strikes in the Gaza Strip in response to Palestinian mortar attacks.
Vatikay said there was no decision to let the latest violence influence further plans to issue permits.
"We want to detach as much as we can the working permits from the security situation. It will stay stable if nothing dramatic happens. With a loose linkage."
The violence and closures have devastated the Palestinian economy. United Nations figures say poverty rates are rising in the territories, with 32 percent of the more than three million Palestinians now living in poverty, or on less than $2 a day.
"No work, no salary, everything is closed. We have been surviving on aid donations," said Mohammad Ali, a 46-year-old Palestinian father of 15 children from Rafah refugee camp.
Only those aged 35 or older, with families, were allowed to enter. One of them was Abu Jelal, who said he had not worked since the uprising started in late September. "Then there was segregation between Israelis and Palestinians of which we had no choice. Even though the same colour blood runs in our veins."
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