Israel to grant 1,500 additional work permits to Palestinians to maintain calm in Gaza

Aug. 19 (EUROPA PRESS) –

The Israeli Government will grant as of this Sunday 1,500 additional work permits to Palestinian residents in Gaza; a measure designed to preserve stability in the Strip after the end of hostilities with the Islamic Jihad terrorist organization in which Hamas, the Palestinian Islamist movement that controls the enclave, refrained from participating in compliance with the ceasefire agreed last year with the Jewish state.

These additional permits bring to 15,500 the total of new concessions issued by Israel and it is expected that in the coming months this figure will reach 20,000, if the population of the West Bank is counted, an unprecedented number that practically triples the only 7,000 permits that Israel conceded around the middle of last year.

This decision has come from the Israeli military liaison office with the Palestinians, the Coordination of Government Activities in the Territories or COGAT, and has the approval of Defense Minister Benny Gantz, one of the main promoters of this initiative.

“All the measures that refer to the civilians of Gaza”, assures COGAT in a statement collected by the ‘Times of Israel’, “depend on a constant stability in the security situation in the enclave”.

There are currently around 130,000 Palestinians from the West Bank who have permits to work in Israel and in Israeli settlements in the West Bank.