Bethlehem – Together Report – When Gandhi was asked how a person loses his dignity, he answered: “When people feel that they have no strength in their homeland.”
On International Workers’ Day, Palestinian workers cry out. They call for help, to no avail. For the seventh month in a row, 200,000 workers have been punished by the occupation, sitting in their homes without income that would preserve their dignity and satisfy their children’s hunger. Many of them went so far as to sell their home furniture in order to feed their children, in light of government silence and a complete absence of workers’ livelihoods other than issuing statements describing the problem without contributing to its solution.
Israel has been using the issue of Palestinian workers as a pressure tool against the Palestinian people. In every confrontation that occurs, Israel resorts to a starvation policy, which it applies through the workers. This happened in the past, and it is happening now, as workers have been sitting in their hom
es for seven months, the duration of the ongoing war on the Gaza Strip.
One of the issues revealed by the war on Gaza and the West Bank is that Palestinian workers constitute the backbone of the economic situation in Palestine. As evidence, observers say, ‘The economy means Israeli workers, and employees of the public and private sectors. They are the wheel of economic life.’ Israel prevented workers from reaching their workplaces, and employees receive half a salary. The result is complete paralysis in the economic situation in the West Bank.
In every round of punishment that Israel imposes on them, Palestinian workers do not find an alternative to working in Israel or a supporter or support for them. Since its arrival more than thirty years ago, the Palestinian Authority has not sought to develop economic and development plans to confront the crises and sanctions imposed by Israel.
In a report by the Palestinian Central Bureau of Statistics, the unemployment rate in the Gaza Strip reached 75% by the end
of the last quarter of 2023, compared to 46% in the third quarter on the eve of the war on October 7, while unemployment rates rose in the West Bank – during the fourth quarter of 2023. 2023 – to 32%, compared to about 13% in the third quarter of the previous year.
It is estimated that at least 200,000 jobs were lost during the first three months of the aggression.
In the West Bank, the number of unemployed people increased to 317,000 in the fourth quarter of 2023, compared to about 129,000 in the third quarter of 2023, according to the statement.
Workers who support families constitute a very large segment of Palestinian society, and instead of the government taking their issue seriously, the Prime Minister addressed them and said, ‘Let them cultivate the land.’ But unfortunately, we also no longer have land to cultivate.
May 1 was chosen in memory of fallen workers and labor leaders, who called for setting working hours at eight hours a day and improving working conditions. But in Palestine there is no
work and the workers are hungry.
Source: Maan News Agency