Palestinian worker from Tarqumia village near the West Bank city of Hebron, was shot and killed by
Israeli and border police during a campaign to arrest
Palestinian workers working in the Israeli city of Jaffa without
work permits, Wednesday at dawn.
Police sources said that the police searched and ransacked locations where Palestinians with no work permits were sleeping. After rounding up a few workers, one of them attacked a police officer and tried to grab the gun. During the fight, the gun fired and killed the worker.
However, there were contradicting accounts of the event by neighbors living in the area, who told the Israeli newspaper that they heard police shouting "stop or I'll shoot" before shots were heard, implying that the shooting had been deliberate and not accidental, as police claim.
With the quickly deteriorating financial situation in the West Bank and Gaza Strip, many Palestinian workers are forced to look for work in Israeli in order to feed their families. In turn, the Israeli Authority does not issue work permits to Palestinians under 30 years old, and the workers must not have a "security record."
If the work permits are optioned, meaning that you are older than 30 and Israel does not have a record on you, you must leave your house at 2 AM to go to the main check point terminal in your city that gives access to the Israeli side of the city through the separation wall, and then wait for an indefinite amount of time in hopes that you will be allowed to pass, but not after being searched and harassed by the Israeli soldiers at 7 AM in the morning.
