GAZA: Residents of Gaza who had been working in Israel returned home on Friday through the Kerem Shalom crossing after the Jewish nation's cabinet announced "there will be no more Palestinian workers from Gaza" and that it was "severing all contact" with the Hamas-controlled enclave.
Earlier in the day, the Israeli Prime Minister's Office said in a post on X: ""Israel is severing all contact with Gaza. There will be no more Palestinian workers from Gaza. Those workers from Gaza who were in Israel on the day of the outbreak of the war will be returned to Gaza."
It also added that the Israeli Security Cabinet has decided "to deduct all funds designated for the Gaza Strip -- in addition to the deduction, required by law, of funds paid to terrorists and their families -- from Palestinian Authority funds".
The Palestinian Authority controls areas of the West Bank, but not the Gaza Strip.
As a result of the announcement, dozens of Gazan men of all ages entered the enclave via the crossing in southern Israel, CNN reported.
“What happened to us never happened to any human being before,” one of the men told CNN.
“They suspended our permissions. We tried to go to the West Bank. They detained us and put us in places we never knew where we were."
Some 18,500 Palestinians from Gaza had received permits to enter Israel before the massive October 7 Hamas attack, the BBC reported citing Cogat, the Israeli defence body responsible for Palestinian civilian affairs, as saying.
So far, a total of 9,061 Palestinians have been killed in the war, mostly women and children, while more than 32,000 people have been injured as a result of the raging violence, according to the latest update by the Gaza Health Ministry.
In Israel, there were about 1,400 casualties with some 5,400 people injured.
According to the Israeli authorities, 242 people are held captive in Gaza, including Israelis, foreign nationals and about 30 children.
Till date, four civilian hostages were released by Hamas, and one female Israeli soldier was rescued by Israeli forces.