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Unemployment pushes Palestinians to work in Israel

Many Palestinians in the West Bank and Gaza Strip, where jobs are scarce and low-paying, enter Israel to find work, and those who are truly desperate end up building the very settlements they seek to end.
Palestinian construction workers work in a site at the industrial area of the Israeli settlement of Misho Edumim, in the occupied West Bank December 24, 2016.  REUTERS/Amir Cohen - RC1D5F5404E0
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GAZA CITY, Gaza Strip — Palestinian Mehdi al-Jabari wakes up at 3 a.m. every Sunday to stand in a long line at the Israeli Meitar checkpoint, which separates the West Bank province of Hebron from Israel. This is the only way he can make it to work in Israeli cities to earn a living.

Jabari has been working in construction in Herzliya, Israel, for 11 years with an Israeli work permit that can be renewed every 45 days. He told Al-Monitor by phone, “My commute consists of a three-hour wait at the Israeli checkpoint, where Israeli soldiers pat me and other workers down, or search us using sniffer dogs.”

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