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News Brief: Al Mezan Issues Fact Sheet on Pandemic’s Impact on Daily-wage Laborers in the Gaza Strip

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28 September 2020 |Reference 48/2020

Al Mezan issued a fact sheet highlighting the financial crisis that daily-wage laborers and various industries are experiencing amid COVID-19 lockdown in the Gaza Strip.

 

The fact and figures presented are based on data obtained from the Ministry of Labor, the Palestinian Federation of Industries, and the Palestinian Bureau of Statistics. The data paints a bleak picture of the current situation, with the lockdown directly affecting over 150 thousand daily-wage laborers and their dependents, and resulting in suspension of operations in the vast majority of factories in the Gaza Strip.

 

International support and swift governmental interventions are urgently needed to offset the pandemic’s dire impact on the economy and reduce the population’s suffering. Al Mezan put forth a number of recommendations and calls for action to the international community and Palestinian duty-bearers to alleviate the suffering of the local population[1]:

 

To the international community:

 

  • The international community must honor its moral and legal obligations by intervening swiftly and effectively to lift the Israeli closure and blockade, and to pressure Israeli authorities to lift restrictions on trade and allow the movement of goods and people.
  • The international community must partake in creating an environment for sustainable development in the Gaza Strip through funding sustainable projects and encouraging long-term investments.

To Palestinian duty-bearers:

  • The authorities must mobilize support and allocate emergency resources to aid daily-wage laborers and their families, enhance social protection programs, and create a national fund to support them indiscriminately.
  • The authorities must support small and medium-sized enterprises through tax-exemptions and access to soft loans.

 

The fact sheet is available for download at the following link:

 http://mezan.org/en/post/23816

 

[1] Al Mezan gathered and published a number of first-hand testimonies from daily-wage laborers in Gaza during lockdown, available at  https://almezancenter.blogspot.com/search/label/Gaza%3A%20Life%20Under%20Lockdown 

 

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