WORKERS EXPELLED
After the Hamas assault, Israeli forces moved to re-establish security on the border, trapping thousands of Palestinian workers inside Israel.
On Friday, officials began to force them back into Gaza, AFP journalists at the Karem Abu Salem crossing saw.
“Thousands of workers who were blocked in Israel since October 7 have been brought back,” the head of Gaza’s crossings authority, Hisham Adwan, told AFP.
Israel had said it would start sending the workers back to Gaza.
“Israel is severing all contact with Gaza. There will be no more Palestinian workers from Gaza,” the Israeli security cabinet said on Thursday.
The United Nations Human Rights Office said it was “deeply concerned” about the expulsions.
“They are being sent back, we don’t know exactly to where,” and whether they “even have a home to go to”, spokeswoman Elizabeth Throssell told a news conference in Geneva.
Before the war started, some 18,500 Gazans held Israeli work permits, according to Israeli defence officials, but it was not clear how many were in the country on Oct 7.
Before his departure, Blinken said he would seek to ensure that harm to Palestinian civilians is reduced, in a visible shift of tone for the United States, which has promised full support and ramped-up military aid to Israel.
Source: CNA
