Israel has begun freezing work permits for approximately 80,000 Palestinians from the occupied West Bank, according to an official source. The Israeli Broadcasting Authority reported, "The Israeli Civil Administration, which is part of the Ministry of Defense, has started freezing around 80,000 work permits for Palestinian workers from the West Bank."
Since the onset of the war on October 7, Israel has prevented workers from the West Bank from accessing the Israeli job market. A few days ago, the Broadcasting Authority claimed that the Israeli army was renewing work permits for tens of thousands of Palestinian workers from the West Bank.
It clarified that at the end of May, the head of the Civil Administration, Hisham Ibrahim, decided to study the freezing of the automatic renewal of work permits for Palestinians in the West Bank who were eligible before the outbreak of the war, pending a political decision to allow them to work.
Before the war, more than 170,000 Palestinians worked in Israel, forming an important source of income for the Palestinian economy. Israel does not permit Palestinian workers to pass through Israeli checkpoints without obtaining permits from the Israeli army.
Previous estimates from the Israeli Ministry of Finance indicate that the absence of Palestinian workers in the construction, agriculture, and industry sectors results in a production loss of three billion shekels (approximately 840 million dollars) per month.
