Israel has sent thousands of Palestinians back to besieged Gaza on Friday, pursuing a crackdown on workers and labourers from the territory who had previously been given permits to take jobs in Israel and the occupied West Bank, Saturday PUNCH has learnt.
Large numbers of workers returned through the Kerem Shalom, crossing east of the Rafah crossing between Egypt and the Gaza Strip, which has been pounded by Israeli jets and tanks for weeks since the Oct. 7 attack on southwestern Israel by gunmen of the territory’s ruling Hamas group, reports Reuters.
Israel has since bombed the coastal Palestinian enclave nonstop and launched a ground offensive, killing more than 9,200 Palestinians, almost half of whom are children, according to Gaza health authorities.
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United Nations officials say more than 1.4 m of Gaza’s population of about 2.3 m have been displaced.
Meanwhile, the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs has launched an emergency aid appeal seeking $1.2 bn to help some 2.7 m people in Gaza and the West Bank.
“The cost of meeting the needs of 2.7 million people — that is the entire population of Gaza and 500,000 people in the occupied West Bank — is estimated to be $1.2 billion,” the UN agency said on Friday.
Fighting was triggered by Hamas’ bloody raids on October 7, which Israeli officials say killed more than 1,400 people.
(Punch)
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