Dozens of Palestinian workers gathered in Gaza on Wednesday to demand an end to the 12-year-old Israeli blockade of the Gaza Strip.
The General Union of Palestinian Workers´ Unions (PGFTU) in Gaza said in a statement distributed during the Labor Day protest that the Israeli blockade has brought the Gaza Strip to "catastrophic living standards, which has become the largest prison in the world."
The demonstrators took up banners reading "Workers Without Work" and others demanding lifting the siege, providing jobs for them and not ignoring their demands.
Labor leader Sami al-Amassi warned that the suffering of workers in Gaza would be exacerbated by the lack of income and wages, and the unemployment rate would rise to more than 52 percent.
He called for the implementation of the minimum wage law in the Gaza Strip and that the Israeli blockade should not become a hurdle to the violation of workers´ rights.
He also called on the United Nations, the Security Council, human rights organizations and the League of Arab States to work hard to lift the Israeli blockade of the Gaza Strip.
Meanwhile, the head of the Palestinian Businessmen Association Ali Al-Hayek warned of worse conditions for workers in the Gaza Strip, with unemployment and poverty among their ranks.
Al Hayek said in a press release on Labor Day that the new unemployment rate is surpassing 52 percent in the sector for the first time in years, with about 300,000 unemployed.
Hayek added that the greatest danger in the unprecedented rise in the unemployment rate in the Gaza Strip is increasing with the absence of government programs to absorb the unemployed and graduates and to stop production in private sector economic establishments as a result of the continued division and siege of Israel.
He pointed out that more than 500 economic establishments in the Gaza Strip have been forced to close completely and lay off their workers recently, due to the siege policies and the prevention of the introduction of raw materials for operation.
