Israel sends thousands of Gazan workers to ‘death zone’

Thousands of cross-border Gazan workers and labourers in Israel and the occupied West Bank were sent back to Gaza today, Reuters journalists said.

Some of the Gazan workers returned through the Kerem Shalom crossing east of the Rafah border crossing between the besieged Gaza Strip and Egypt, they said.

The office of Israel’s Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, said on Thursday night: “Those workers from Gaza who were in Israel on the day of the outbreak of the war will be returned to Gaza.”

The announcement comes as Israel is pounding the Palestinian territory killing more than 9,000 people, most of them women and children.

The UN has repeatedly said there is no safe place in Gaza as strikes have hit residential buildings, hospitals, schools and religious places.

Workers crossing into the Palestinian enclave said they have been detained and ill-treated by Israeli authorities after the Oct 7 Hamas attack on southern Israel. Some still had plastic stickers carrying numbers around their legs.

“We used to serve them, work for them, in houses, in restaurants, and in markets in return for the lowest prices and despite that we were humiliated,” said Jamal Ismail, a worker from the Maghazi refugee camp in central Gaza Strip.

Those from areas in northern Gaza would have to stay in the south after Israeli forces have completed cutting off roads late on Thursday, according to Palestinian officials.