Ramallah: Thousands of Palestinian labourers have been left jobless after the Israeli occupation authorities banned them from entering several colonies in the West Bank in a collective punishment in response to the latest attack on the colony of Halamish, near Ramallah.
The ban, announced by the Israeli army, covers most of the West Bank colonies, including those in Ramallah and the southern areas of the West Bank. The Palestine Federation of Trade Unions said the Israeli occupation had also imposed strict entry measures at other colonies.
The Palestinian National Authority (PNA) has refused to intervene, claiming that it considers this work in the West Bank colonies as illegal.
The West Bank, captured by Israel in the 1967 Mideast Six-Day War, is home to more than 150 colonies, 100 colony outposts and several other industrial zones. More than 40,000 West Bankers, including 3,000 women, work in the Israeli colonies, with work permits secured by their contractors.
The PNA and Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas have issued laws criminalising trade in the products and services of the Israeli colonies. Violators face fines or imprisonment.
The PNA says it has turned a blind eye on the work of Palestinian labourers in the colonies due to the 40 per cent rate of unemployment among Palestinians, mainly young people. Palestinians secure work permits in the Israeli colonies without having to go through the red tape involved in getting a work permit inside Israel.
Palestinian Omar Al Abed, 19, from the village of Kobar, near Ramallah, killed three Israeli colonists in Halamish last Friday in response to the Israeli government’s decision last week to place metal detectors at the entrances of Al Haram Al Sharif in occupied East Jerusalem — home of the Dome of the Rock and Al Aqsa Mosque, the third holiest place in Islam.
Israeli colonists in the West Bank have been attacking Palestinian vehicles and villages in revenge, injuring dozens of people.
Samer Salama, assistant undersecretary of the Palestinian Labour Ministry, has confirmed that the PNA will not take up complaints about the ban from Palestinian labourers.
