This Friday, Israel returned to Gaza thousands of workers from the Gaza Strip who were in the country on the day the war began and were unable to return to their homes. They were arrested en masse or forcibly transferred to the West Bank, while there was a general feeling in Israel that the day laborers had exploited their jobs in Israel for months to gather intelligence that made the Hamas attack possible, killing up to 1,400 people in the process People killed, most of them civilians, on October 7th.
The entire process is characterized by opacity and allegations of torture and ill-treatment. “They took us to a camp that wasn’t even suitable for the animals. “They tortured us with electric shocks and set dogs on us,” one of them, Yasser Mostafa, told Agence France Presse in Gaza. In the pictures you can see her exhausted and without any belongings. Some show signs of wounds and wear blue bracelets with an identification number.
“We have been in prison for 25 days and today they brought us here. “We don’t know what’s happening in Gaza, we have no idea about the situation,” said another, Nidal Abed. “We used to serve them, work for them, at home, in restaurants, in markets, at the lowest prices. And yet we were humiliated,” Jamal Ismail told Portal.
More information
The exact number of Gazans who crossed the border this Friday is unknown, mainly through the Kerem Shalom crossing. In fact, the authorities do not provide any figures (nor are the NGOs clear) how many were actually in Israel that day, as some had returned to Gaza to spend the weekend and another was in the West Bank stopped. What is certain is that on October 7, 18,500 Gaza residents were permitted to work in the country.
A week after the war began, Ramallah’s deputy governor, Hamdan Barghouti, estimated that there were 3,200 Gazans in Israel with work permits in sports centers, hostels or hotels in the West Bank. Shortly afterwards, Israeli TV channel 12 put the number of those arrested at 4,000. The Palestinian Authority Labor Ministry came to a similar estimate. That’s more than 7,000 in total.
Join EL PAÍS to follow all the news and read without restrictions.
Subscribe to
A Palestinian worker who was in Israel during the Hamas attack on October 7 is received upon his arrival at the Rafah border after being returned to the Gaza Strip by Israel this Friday, November 3, 2023. IBRAHEEM ABU MUSTAFA (Portal)
This Thursday, six Israeli NGOs filed an urgent application with the Supreme Court over the apparently illegal detention of 568 Gazans in at least two Israeli military bases in the West Bank, “against their will, isolated from the world, without access to legal representation and.” They are being deprived of the right to a fair trial,” one of them, Gisha, said in a statement, suspecting they were being held in “inhumane” and “extremely harsh” conditions and “subjected to extensive physical and psychological violence.” Abuse.” .
The forced return came shortly after it was approved at a meeting of Israel’s security cabinet. Last midnight, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu announced that “the Gaza workers who were in Israel on the day the war broke out will be returned to Gaza” and that “there will never again be any Palestinian workers” from the Gaza Strip.
The UN High Commissioner for Human Rights said he was “deeply concerned” about this transfer. Its spokeswoman, Liz Throssell, denounced in a press conference in Geneva that these employees are being sent back today “despite the seriousness of the situation” to the Palestinian enclave, where Israeli bombings kill hundreds of people every day (mainly women and minors). and the ground troops are already surrounding the capital. The death toll exceeds 9,000 in less than a month.
Follow all international information on Facebook and Xor in our weekly newsletter.