Israel Expels Hundreds of Palestinian Workers to Gaza

On Friday, hundreds of Gazans who were in Israel with work permits are being expelled and sent to Gaza, which remains besieged by air, ground and naval attacks by the Israeli Army.

RELATED: 

Aid Delivery, Foreign Evacuation Continue at Rafah Crossing

"Israel is cutting all contact with Gaza. There will be no more Palestinian workers from Gaza. Gaza workers who were in Israel on the day the war broke out will be returned to Gaza," the Israeli Security Cabinet said on Thursday night.

Israeli authorities have not given figures on the total number of Gazans who will be expelled. However, an estimated 18,500 Palestinians from Gaza had work permits in Israel, according to figures from the Coordinator of Government Activities in the Territories (COGAT), a military institution that controls civil affairs in the occupied territories.

Since Oct. 7, many Palestinian workers have been displaced to the West Bank while at least 4,000 have been detained by Israeli authorities and subjected to interrogation to determine whether any of them were involved in Hamas attacks.

Thousands of Gazans were held at the Ofer prison in the West Bank and military bases, according human rights defenders, who considered their detention "an illegal act of revenge."

In retaliation for the actions deployed by Hamas on Oct. 7, Israel is incessantly bombing Gaza. On Oct. 27, the Israeli occupation army began a land incursion into the enclave.

So far, Israel's military offensive has left at least 9,100 Palestinians dead and over 30,000 injured. Despair is rife among Palestinians in Gaza, where many hospitals and cemeteries have collapsed due to the growing number of victims.

Nearly 1.5 million people have been displaced in the Strip, and many of them are desperately seeking to leave Gaza through the Rafah crossing on the border with Egypt, the only one in the enclave that has been open on rare occasions to evacuate wounded and foreigners.