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400,000 Palestinians lost jobs due to war
Says ILO as Israeli authorities cancelled their work permits, imposed restrictions on crossings
AGENCIES
Hundreds of thousands of Palestinians in the West Bank have lost their jobs or had their salaries frozen after the Israeli authorities cancelled their work permits and imposed severe restrictions on crossings after the October 7 offensive.
Around 182,000 Gaza residents who work in Israel and the settlements had their employment terminated, initial estimates by the International Labour Organization (ILO) suggest, while about 24 percent of employment in the West Bank has also been lost – equivalent to 208,000 jobs – as a result of the Israel-Hamas war.
According to the ILO, a further 160,000 workers from the West Bank either lost their jobs in Israel and the settlements, at least temporarily, or are at risk of losing them “as a result of restrictions imposed on Palestinians’ access to the Israeli labour market and the closures of crossings from the West Bank into Israel and the settlements”.
Hani Mousa, an assistant political science professor at Birzeit University in the West Bank, said this is part of “Israel’s collective punishment of Palestinians, which also extended to employees in the Palestinian Authority (PA), whose salaries were not paid because Israel did not transfer the money needed”.
Under interim peace accords, the Israeli finance minister has the final say in monthly money transfers made to the PA from taxes it collects on Palestinians’ behalf.
The PA is then typically able to pay its employees, which it was not able to do in October, as Israel refused to make the full transfers, reports The Guardian online.
Unemployment in the Gaza Strip stood at 46.4 percent in the second quarter of 2023, one of the highest rates in the world, reports Al Jazeera online.
More than 80 percent of the population lives below the poverty line, according to the UN.
Shortages of food, water and medical supplies have worsened since Israel tightened its blockade and began bombarding the enclave on October 7.
The prosecutor of the International Criminal Court (ICC) on Sunday called on Israel to respect the international rules of war and said he was accelerating his investigation into violence by Israeli settlers against Palestinians in the occupied West Bank.
“In Gaza, there is no justification for doctors to perform operations without light, for children to be operated upon without anaesthetics. Imagine the pain,” ICC prosecutor Karim Khan said in a video message posted online after a four-day visit to Israel and the Palestinian Authority in the West Bank.
“I was crystal clear, that this is the time to comply with the law. If Israel doesn’t comply now, they shouldn’t complain later.”
Khan also called on Hamas to respect the rules of war and to not misuse any humanitarian aid that is brought into the besieged Gaza strip, reports Reuters.
“Civilians must have access to basic food, water and desperately needed medical supplies, without further delay, and at pace and at scale.”
The Red Cross president arrived in war-torn Gaza yesterday, calling for the protection of civilians in the Palestinian territory, where she warned that human suffering was “intolerable”.
The International Committee of the Red Cross said ICRC president Mirjana Spoljaric’s travel to the region would happen in several stages with “a visit to Israel expected over the coming weeks”.
“I have arrived in Gaza, where people’s suffering is intolerable,” Spoljaric said on X, formerly Twitter.
“It is unacceptable that civilians have no safe place to go in Gaza, and with a military siege in place there is also no adequate humanitarian response currently possible,” she added in an ICRC statement.
Spoljaric, whose organisation has faced criticism from both sides in the conflict for not providing adequate help to Israeli hostages held by Hamas and Palestinian prisoners held by Israel, insisted that “all those deprived of liberty must be treated humanely”.