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Child Labor in Gaza

Israel's blockade and Gaza's rising poverty and unemployment are contributing to increased child labor in the Strip, writes Mohammed Suliman.
A Palestinian boy collects fish at Gaza Seaport in Gaza City December 13, 2012. The horizon of the claustrophobic Gaza Strip stretches further out to sea after a bloody eight-day battle last month and its main market gleams with extra supplies of locally-caught fish. In a low-key move it has yet to acknowledge, Israel moved a naval blockade it imposed in 2009 back to six miles (10 km) from the Palestinian enclave's coast from three on Nov 23, two days after signing an Egypt-brokered truce with Gaza's Hamas

Swiftly dodging the cars on one of Gaza’s busiest roads, two young kids raced their way between cars as they knocked on the cars’ windows and offered the passengers some of their commodities, which consisted of lighters, candy and tissue paper. This scene, which has become pervasive in the streets of the Gaza Strip in recent years, has turned child labor into a rather obvious phenomenon in the densely populated coastal enclave.

Child labor has been on the rise due to growing poverty and unemployment among Gaza’s population, more than 80% of whose families, according to UN reports, depend on humanitarian aid. While it cannot be separated from the political situation and the Israeli occupation, most analysts trace it back to 2006, when Israel started its blockade policy with regards to the civilian population of Gaza.

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