JERUSALEM: Israel on Friday began sending thousands of Palestinian workers back to Gaza who had been stranded inside Israel since its war with Hamas erupted, a Gaza border official said.
“Thousands of workers who were blocked in Israel since October 7 have been brought back,” Hisham Adwan, head of Gaza’s crossings authority, told AFP.
AFPTV footage shot early on Friday showed groups of workers arriving through the Karem Abu Salem crossing between Israel and southern Gaza, which is normally only used for goods.
Israel said late on Thursday it would start deporting 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 in a statement.
“Those workers from Gaza who were in Israel on the day of the outbreak of the war will be returned to Gaza,” it added, without specifying how many people would be sent back.
Before the war started, some 18,500 Gazans were holding Israeli work permits, according to figures provided by COGAT, the Israeli defense body responsible for Palestinian civilian affairs.
COGAT did not immediately respond to a request for the number of Gazans who were working inside Israel on October 7, when Hamas militants stormed across the border and killed at least 1,400 people, mostly civilians, according to Israeli officials.
Following the onslaught, Israel struck back hard with a relentless bombing campaign that has killed more than 9,000 people, mainly civilians, according to the health ministry in Hamas-run Gaza.
Thousands of Gazan workers sent back from Israel
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Thousands of Gazan workers sent back from Israel
- Israeli security cabinet said it is severing ties with Gaza
UNESCO fears for fate of historical sites during Iran war
- “UNESCO is deeply concerned by the first impact that the hostilities are already having on many world heritage sites,” Assomo said
- Tehran’s Golestan palace, damaged in US–Israeli strikes, is testimony to the grandeur of Iran’s civilization in the 19th century
PARIS: UNESCO said it is deeply concerned about the fate of world heritage sites in Iran and across the region, after Tehran’s Golestan palace, often compared to Versailles, and a historic mosque and palace in Isfahan were damaged in the war.
The United Nations’ cultural agency on Wednesday urged all parties to protect the region’s outstanding cultural sites, saying four of Iran’s 29 world heritage sites had been damaged since the start of the US and Israeli war with Iran.
“UNESCO is deeply concerned by the first impact that the hostilities are already having on many world heritage sites,” Lazare Eloundou Assomo, director of the World Heritage Center, told Reuters, adding he was also concerned for sites in Israel, Lebanon and across the Middle East.
Tehran’s Golestan palace, damaged in US–Israeli strikes, is testimony to the grandeur of Iran’s civilization in the 19th century, he said.
The palace was chosen as the Persian royal residence and seat of power by the Qajar family and shows the introduction of European styles in Persian arts, according to the UNESCO website. The last Shah of Iran, Mohammad Reza Pahlavi, held a coronation ceremony there in 1969.
“We sometimes even compare it with the Versailles Palace in France, for instance, and it has suffered, unfortunately, some damage. We don’t know the extent for the moment. But clearly, with the images that we have been able to receive, we can confirm ... it has been affected,” Eloundou Assomo said.
Photos of the interior of the palace have shown piles of smashed glass and shards of wood on the floor, and shattered woodwork.
Isfahan was one of Central Asia’s most important cities and a key point on the Silk Road trading route. Its Masjed-e Jame (Jameh Mosque) is more than 1,000 years old and shows the development of Islamic art through 12 centuries.
Buildings close to the buffer zone of the prehistoric sites of the Khorramabad Valley have also been damaged, UNESCO said.
UNESCO has shared coordinates of key cultural sites to all parties, Eloundou Assomo said, and was monitoring damage.
“We are calling for the protection of all sites of cultural significance ... everything that tells the history of all the civilizations of the 18 countries in the region,” he said.
