Home » News » Thousands of Palestinian workers from Gaza displaced in the West Bank with no option to return

Thousands of Palestinian workers from Gaza displaced in the West Bank with no option to return

For now, thousands are still trapped there, waiting to return to their families.

“I want to return to live and die together,” Fuad, a worker from the Gazan city of Jan Yunis, told EFE.

After the start of the war, he left the metallurgical workshop in the city of Modín where he was employed and moved to the occupied West Bank, a path similar to that of many other Palestinians who were among the around 17,000 people from Gaza who obtained permission to employment in Israel.

Fuad, 64, left his wife and two children to look for work in Israel: “The situation in Gaza was very difficult before the war, there was no money or aid.”

However, the current war “is the worst of all”, ended his job and left him stranded in the West Bank, occupied with the anguish of not being with his family, threatened by bombs.

General view of the Jenin refugee camp, in the West Bank, in a file image. EFE / Yemeli Ortega

Solidarity in refugee camps

“The moment I can enter Gaza, I will go there,” he explains from a community center in the Deheisha refugee camp, in the city of Bethlehem, where he is housed with almost two hundred other Palestinians from Gaza who are now gone. They have somewhere to go.

There, they receive help from the people of the camp itself, who these days have organized to bring them food, clothing, mattresses or logistical support.

This scene does not happen only in Bethlehem, but is repeated in many other parts of the West Bank such as the cities of Ramallah, Jericho, Nablus or Hebron, where thousands of Gazans are sheltered in university centers, public pavilions, hotels or family homes. .

“The people and local authorities themselves take care of them,” Palestinian analyst Jamal Zakout tells EFE, who estimates that there are now between 10,000 and 15,000 Gaza employees distributed throughout the West Bank territory in an effort highly supported by the popular initiative.

In turn, he denounces that “Israel fired and canceled the work permits of all the people from Gaza who worked there,” despite the fact that the Israeli authorities rigidly reviewed their cases to rule out ties with Hamas or political or armed factions in Gaza.

“They were workers, they underwent security checks and I doubt that they were fired in this way for protection, but rather for collective punishment,” says Zakout, regarding cases of Gazans who were urged to leave after their work permits were suspended. job.

Israeli operation in the Nur Shams refugee camp in the West Bank
File image of the remains of a barrier in the Nur Shams refugee camp, near the town of Tulkarem, in the West Bank, following a military operation by the Israeli army. EFE/EPA/Alaa Badarneh

Tension in the West Bank

EFE has consulted COGAT, the Israeli body that manages civil affairs in Palestinian territory, about the situation of these workers, and is awaiting a response.

According to the Palestinian analyst, adding to the uncertainty of many is Israel’s arrest campaign in West Bank territory, where in recent days at least one hundred Gazans were detained, as part of an operation against people suspected of having ties to Hamas.

“We don’t know what will happen or what will become of us,” another Gaza worker who does not want to reveal his identity tells EFE, and who two weeks ago left his job in a clothing store in Tel Aviv to go to the West Bank on the recommendation of the company bosses

After passing through Ramallah, the de facto capital of the Palestinian National Authority (PNA), he was transferred to the Deheisha camp in Bethlehem, where he watches the hours pass with concern for his wife and six children, refugees in the city’s Al Shifa hospital. from Gaza.

This man in his fifties, like other Gazans, feared he would no longer be safe in Israel after the Hamas attack that left more than 1,400 dead, the hardest blow to the country in its 75-year history.

“There was fear, we feared revenge,” adds Fuad, who believes that the current war “can take time” and is clear about one thing: “Nothing will be like before,” neither for Israel nor for the Palestinians of Gaza. With EFE

Leave a Comment

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.