JERUSALEM (Transatlantic Today) — After a number of rockets were launched from the region governed by the extremist Hamas group in recent days, Israel announced on Saturday that it will block the border gate to thousands of Gaza employees.
The Palestinians condemned the measure as “collective punishment” against the impoverished region’s 2 million inhabitants, who have been subjected to an Egyptian-Israeli embargo since Hamas took authority from opposing Palestinian forces over 15 years ago.
According to ABC NEWS, the rocket attacks occurred during near-daily skirmishes at a key Jerusalem holy place over the previous week, with Palestinians throwing fireworks and stones with Israeli forces entering the area and shooting rubber-coated bullets and flash grenades.
The bloodshed in Jerusalem, as well as a series of fatal strikes within Israel and incursions across the annexed West Bank, has sparked worries of another conflict involving Hamas and Israel, akin to the one that erupted last year amid similar circumstances.
Late Friday, Palestinian terrorists launched 2 rockets, one of which landed in an open field within Israel and another in Gaza, according to Israel. According to Palestinian media, the rocket that missed its target injured two Gaza civilians.
Early Saturday, another missile was launched from Gaza, although the army did not disclose where it hit. There have been no casualties or damage reported.
The Israeli armed forces agency in charge of civilian operations in Gaza has announced that the border used by employees would not reopen on Sunday, the first day of the workweek.
Israel has handed hundreds of work licences to Palestinians in Gaza in past months, that has been under a crushing Egyptian and Israeli siege since Hamas assumed control from opposing Palestinian forces over 15 years ago.
The measure was framed by Israel as a gesture of goodwill to maintain peace, but the licenses — which can be canceled at any moment — provide them a powerful kind of control over Palestinians. Israel issues work permits to around 12,000 Palestinians within Gaza and around 100,000 Palestinians in the controlled West Bank, primarily for construction and other low-wage jobs.
The Gaza workers’ union called the shutdown “collective punishment” that will wreak havoc on the already struggling economy, which has a 50 percent unemployment rate. It said that the closure’s timing, just before the Eid al-Fitr festival, which marks the conclusion of Ramadan, will exacerbate the misery for households struggling financially.
The licenses themselves, according to Sami Amassi, were designed to “exploit” the laborers for political goals rather than better their lives.
The measure, according to Hamas spokesman Hazem Qassem, “aims at tightening the siege and is a form of aggression that we cannot accept.”
During the 1967 war, Israel seized east Jerusalem, the Gaza Strip, and the West Bank, along with important religious sites sacred to Muslims, Christians, and Jews. The Palestinians want their future state to include all three areas.
Israel seized east Jerusalem in a move that was not recognised by the international community, and it has developed Jewish colonies throughout the occupied West Bank, housing roughly 500,000 Jews alongside almost 3 million Palestinians. In more than a decade, there have been no real peace negotiations.
The Al-Aqsa Mosque, Islam’s 3rd holiest site, has been the focus of the unrest in Jerusalem. Because it was the site of 2 Jewish temples in antiquity, Jews regard the hilltop on which it is situated as their holiest place, referring to it as the Temple Mount.
The location is at the centre of the Palestinian-Israeli conflict, and confrontations there have frequently sparked bloodshed elsewhere.