Gaza, ALRAY - MP Jamal al-Khudari said that 80% of the factories in Gaza got fully or partially closed due to the continued siege.

Khudari, who is Head of the Popular Committee against the Siege, said Saturday in a press statement that the Israeli authorities are banning hundreds of raw material items to enter Gaza what caused the factories to stop working.

He insisted that “the Israeli occupation carefully decides the raw material items to be denied access to Gaza so that Gaza economy would be brought to a standstill and thus thousands of workers and engineers active in construction sector laid off,”

Al-Khudari stressed that “Israel’s justifications for the ban on many goods and raw materials are completely untenable and unrealistic as it’s just trying hard to impose a fait accompli.”

Gaza has been under an extreme economic blockade since 2007. Israel since was allowing limited quantities of construction supplies destined for international projects. 

The smuggling tunnels which Gazans were forced to rely on for their needs mainly of building material and fuels were semi-completely destroyed following Egyptian military’s disposition of president Morsi in July 2013.