- Title: GAZA: ISRAEL LIFTS BAN ON PALESTINIANS WORKING IN ISRAEL
- Date: 1st April 1996
- Summary: GAZA, WEST BANK (APRIL 1, 1996) (REUTERS TELEVISION - ACCESS ALL) GAZA (RTV - ACCESS ALL) 1. LV BUSES CROSSING THE EREZ CHECKPOINT 0.20 2. SLV ISRAELI ARMY JEEP CROSSING THE CHECKPOINT/PALESTINIAN POLICEMEN WATCHING 0.30 3. SV TWO CHILDREN HOLDING A SIGN AND OLIVE BRANCHES/ PAN CHILDEN WITH OLIVE BRANCHES 0.43
- Embargoed: 16th April 1996 13:00
- Keywords:
- Location: GAZA
- City:
- Country: Palestinian Territories
- Reuters ID: LVAAWO1K6ORPZGL5LUXCFBRGREWB
- Story Text: INTRO: Israel lifts the ban on Palestinians working in Israel but only men of 45 and upwards with families will be allowed to work on farms in the Negev desert near the Gaza Strip.
----------------------------------------------------------------- Israel eased a ban on Palestinian workers imposed five weeks ago in the wake of suicide bombings, announcing on Monday (April 1) it would let 3,000 Gazans work on farms in the Jewish state.
Government spokesman Shlomo Dror said they represented five percent of the 60,000 Arab workers who entered before Israel sealed off the West Bank and Gaza Strip on February 25.
Palestinians had assailed the closure, imposed following the first of four suicide attacks as collective punishment for the acts of a few. The attacks, claimed by the Islamic group Hamas, killed 58 people.
The closure has battered the Palestinian economy.
In Gaza a group of workers and their children demonstrated against the closure, possibly unaware that a partial re-opening could happen as early as Tuesday.
"It's a humanitarian gesture. We had a request from the Palestinian Authority," Dror said.
All of the workers must be over the age of 45 and married with families -- a category that Israel believes reduces any security risk. All would work on farms in the Negev desert near the Gaza Strip.
Dror said the Palestinians could begin working as soon as Tuesday if Palestinian President Yasser Arafat's self-rule authority provided the names. But he said they would be barred again during the Jewish holiday of Passover and on the Sabbath -- days when Israel closes down.
Freij al-Khairi, Palestinian head of a joint civilian liaison committee with Israel, said Palestinians had yet to be informed officially of the Israeli action.
In the West Bank thousands of students marched through the streets protesting at the closure, while prtestors hurled rocks at passing Israeli jeeps.
At the main Israel-Gaza border crossing on Monday, about 200 Palestinian children, including mentally handicapped youngsters, protested against the closure.
The children, aged four to eight, held olive branches and signs reading: "Israeli children, let us be friends and grow up in peace -- not in pieces" and "Please allow my dad to work".
Arafat, based in Gaza, planned to visit the West Bank later this week for the first time since the closure was imposed, his spokesman Nabil Abu Rdainah said.
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