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Palestinian businessmen, contractors rally against Israeli blockade

Xinhua, October 29, 2016 Adjust font size:

Dozens of Palestinian businessmen and contractors demonstrated in Gaza city on Saturday, calling on Israel to ease tightened measures imposed on the borders that have damaged their businesses.

The protest was organized by the Council to Coordinate with Gaza Private Sector.

The participants called on Israel to ease its recent tightened measures imposed on the import and shipping of materials, mainly construction raw materials.

Israel, which imposed a blockade on the Gaza Strip in 2007 after the Islamic Hamas movement violently took over the coastal enclave, has recently tightened the measures on the shipment of goods to the territory.

Faisal al-Shawa, Secretary General of the council, told the protest that the private sector rejects the recent mechanism of the construction plan in Gaza.

"We condemn the strange silence towards the new Israeli measures," he said, warning of neglecting the suffering of the private sector.

Walid al-Husari, chairman of the Gaza Chamber of Commerce, told the rally that "this protest was organized against the endless unfair Israeli measures that are practiced against the populations in the Gaza Strip."

Israel had recently reduced the numbers of trucks loaded with various kinds of products from 500 to 340 per day, according to Raed Fattouh, the Palestinian official in charge of goods coordination.

Ali Al-Hayek, chairman of Gaza Businessmen Association, warned that the Israeli measures "will certainly lead to a complete stop to the entire process."

He called for exercising Arab and international pressure on Israel to ease these measures, end more than 10 years of the blockade and lift the ban on hundreds of various kinds of goods. Endit