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Gaza youth dream of jobs in Qatar

Amid increasing unemployment rates in the Gaza Strip, youth have warmly welcomed an agreement between the Palestinian and Qatari governments to employ 20,000 additional Palestinians in Qatar.
Members of Hamas security forces sit between posters depicting senior Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh (L) and Qatar's Emir Sheik Hamad bin Khalifa al-Thani (R) in Khan Younis in the southern Gaza Strip October 22, 2012. The emir of pro-Western Qatar will become the first head of state to enter the blockaded Gaza Strip on Tuesday, in a high-profile visit breaking the isolation of the Iranian-backed Islamist movement Hamas that seized power in 2007. REUTERS/Ibraheem Abu Mustafa (GAZA - Tags: POLITICS) - RTR39F87

GAZA CITY, Gaza Strip — Ahmad Rafic did not hesitate to register his name on the list of people applying for work in Qatar, following the Palestinian Ministry of Labor’s announcement that Prime Minister Rami Hamdallah had signed an agreement with the Qatari government allowing 20,000 Palestinians to work there once again. Meanwhile, some youth in Gaza criticized the agreement, saying it was a way to empty Palestine of qualified workers and avoid their demands of improving the Palestinian economy.

Rafic, 30, has been working as a civil engineer for the past 2½ years under fixed-term contracts with the UN Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East (UNRWA). But UNRWA’s shift toward reducing the scope of its activities in the Gaza Strip for financial reasons has Rafic worried, since it would deprive him of his only reliable employment.

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