GAZA: Israel closed crossing points with Gaza on Wednesday, preventing thousands of workers from getting to their jobs in Israel and the West Bank, following days of border demonstrations that saw Israeli forces open fire and kill a protester a day earlier.
The move stops more than 18,000 Palestinians from crossing for work, depriving the blockaded territory’s ailing economy of around $2 million a day, according to local economists.
Protests backed by Hamas, the Islamist group that controls Gaza, have been held for days, against issues ranging from the treatment of Palestinian prisoners in Israeli jails to Jewish visits to the Al Aqsa mosque compound, a site holy to both Muslims and Jews, who know it as the Temple Mount.
On Tuesday, a Palestinian man was shot and killed by Israeli forces during the protests and 11 others were wounded, according to Gaza health officials.
A spokesperson for Cogat, the Israeli Defense Ministry agency that coordinates with the Palestinians, confirmed that the Erez crossing into Gaza was closed and said it would be re-opened “in accordance with situational assessments.”
The border closure, which follows a brief ban on exports from Gaza earlier this month after inspectors found explosives in a consignment of goods, will add pressure to an economy already under strain due a blockade imposed by Israel and Egypt.
“We are too afraid the crossing won’t open anytime soon and I go back to living in poverty and need,” said one Gaza father of five, who has been sleeping at the Palestinian side of Erez crossing since Sunday evening.
The 18,000 workers permits allowed by Israel bring in significant quantities of cash to a territory where according to IMF figures, per capita income is only a quarter of the level in the West Bank and where unemployment is running at nearly 50 percent, according to the World Bank.
Ayman Abu Krayyem, the spokesman of the Hamas-run Gaza Ministry of Labour, said that as a result of the closure 8,000 workers who returned to Gaza because of Israeli Jewish holidays have been stranded in the territory since the ban.
“Those are losing 3.2 million shekel ($842,000) a day. These are important money by which they could help their families and improve their economic conditions…. This is a collective punishment,” said Krayyem.
Over the past few weeks, the military said its soldiers had been using riot dispersal means against Palestinians throwing explosives at the border fence along the Gaza Strip.
Egypt and Qatar, two key mediators in previous rounds of fighting, were talking to the two sides in a bid to avoid sliding into a new wave of armed confrontation, said one Palestinian official familiar with those efforts.
Israel bans workers from Gaza as border tensions escalate
https://arab.news/v2344
Israel bans workers from Gaza as border tensions escalate
- The move stops more than 18,000 Palestinians from crossing for work
Baghdad traders protest new customs tariffs
- The demonstrators gathered outside the General Customs Directorate on Sunday, chanting slogans against corruption and rejecting the new fees
BAGHDAD: Hundreds of traders and owners of customs clearance companies protested in central Baghdad on Sunday, demanding that Iraq’s government reverse recently imposed customs tariffs they say have sharply increased their costs and disrupted trade.
The new tariffs that took effect on Jan. 1 were imposed to reduce the country’s debt and reliance on oil revenues, as oil prices have fallen.
Iraq faces a debt of more than 90 trillion Iraqi dinars ($69 billion) — and a state budget that remains reliant on oil for about 90 percent of revenues, despite attempts to diversify.
But traders say the new tariffs — in some cases as high as 30 percent — have placed an unfair burden on them. Opponents have filed a lawsuit aiming to reduce the decision, which Iraq’s Federal Supreme Court is set to rule on Wednesday.
The demonstrators gathered outside the General Customs Directorate on Sunday, chanting slogans against corruption and rejecting the new fees.
“We used to pay about 3 million dinars per container, but now in some cases they ask for up to 14 million,” said Haider Al-Safi, a transport and customs clearance company owner.
“Even infant milk fees rose from about 495,000 dinars to nearly 3 million.”
He said that the new tariffs have caused a backlog of goods at the Umm Qasr port in southern Iraq and added that electric vehicles, previously exempt from customs duties, are now subject to a 15 percent fee.
“The main victim is the citizen with limited income, and government employee whose salary barely covers his daily living, those who have to pay rent, and have children with school expenses — they all will be affected by the market,” said Mohammed Samir, a wholesale trader from Baghdad.
Protesters also accused influential groups of facilitating the release of goods in exchange for lower unofficial payments, calling it widespread corruption.
Many traders, they said, are now considering routing their imports through the Kurdistan region, where fees are lower.
The protests coincided with a nationwide strike by shop owners, who closed markets and stores in several parts of Baghdad to oppose the tariff increase.
In major commercial districts, shops remained shut and hung up banners reading “Customs fees are killing citizens.”
