Mideast - AFP
Olmert says pullout would end work for Gaza Palestinians in Israel
Date: Wed Apr 28, 5:47 AM ET
JERUSALEM (AFP) - Deputy Prime Minister Ehud Olmert warned that the removal of troops and Jewish settlements in the Gaza Strip (news - web sites) would eventually put an end to the crossing into Israel of Palestinians workers.
"The number of Palestinian workers from the Gaza Strip working in Israel is steadily decreasing and will continue to dwindle before eventually disappearing completely after our unilateral withdrawal from the area," Olmert told public radio on Wednesday.
"Of course, this does not mean we will completely isolate the Gaza Strip from the outside world, nor starve its residents, but our pullout from this area will guarantee us a better security situation," he added.
Olmert's comments came four days before Prime Minister Ariel Sharon (news - web sites)'s is due to submit his so-called "disengagement" plan to a referendum within the Likud party.
Several leading members of the ruling right-wing party are opposed to the plan, a package of unilateral measures which includes the dismantling of all 21 Jewish settlements in the Gaza Strip.
In the poverty-stricken territory, working in Israel has been a major source of income, despite frequent restrictions on the number of workers allowed to cross into the Jewish state.
Some 4,000 Palestinians from Gaza are employed at an industrial zone near the Erez crossing point and another 15,000 were granted permits to cross into Israel to work.
Before the intifada, or Palestinian uprising, broke out in September 2000, some 30,000 Gazans would cross daily into Israel to work and tens of thousands more were employed there illegally.
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