The Israeli Authorities decided Thursday to allow a percentage of Palestinian workers to resume their work inside Israel, while new arrangements have been made for Friday Prayers at Al Aqsa Mosque amid continuing violent confrontations between the two sides, according to Radio Israel.
The radio said that 10,000 Palestinians are permitted to work inside Israel after a ban since the outbreak of the Intifada. 6000 laborers will be from the West Bank and the other 4000 from Gaza.
Palestinian sources say that about 120,000 Palestinians, who used to work in Israel, have been deprived from the daily bread because of the siege imposed by Israel on the territories, in addition to 140,000 who became unemployed after they lost their jobs in the West Bank and Gaza.
AFP said that the number of workers permitted into Israel is 16,000.
Meanwhile, Israel said it would allow 1000 Palestinians from the West Bank and Gaza to perform Friday prayers at Al Aqsa Mosque, said the Israeli radio. The worshipers must be over 45 and will be transported in special buses.
Besides, Israel has decided to re-impose an age limit of 35 and above for Palestinians from east Jerusalem and Israeli Arabs allowed to attend Friday prayers at the al-Aqsa mosque compound.
The compound has throughout Ramadan witnessed spiraling violence, as the holiday is declared a “day of rage” in the Palestinian camp.
On Thursday, a Jewish settler aged 46 was seriously wounded when his car came under fire from Palestinians in another vehicle near the West Bank town of Ramallah, military sources said.
Earlier in the day, Israeli troops shot and killed a member of the armed wing of the Islamic movement Hamas while they were trying to arrest him at an army post in the southern Gaza Strip.
Hani Abu Baqr, 31, was killed when the taxi minibus he was driving came under fire from the soldiers on a road near the Gush Katif settlement bloc, becoming the sixth Palestinian to die in the past two days.
Hamas sources told AFP Abu Baqr was a member of the movement's armed wing, Ezzedin al-Qassam, and had been in a Palestinian jail between 1996 and 1998.
“ During an attempt to arrest the Hamas activist at an army blockade, the terrorist tried to fire with his revolver. The army unit opened fire towards the terrorist and killed him," the army said in a statement, without saying why the army wanted him arrested.
Abu Baqr's minibus was traveling between Khan Yunis in the southern Gaza Strip and Gaza City in the north when it came under fire, killing him and injuring another five people, witnesses and Palestinian security officials said.
“ This is a deliberate assassination," one Hamas source told AFP.
It was the latest in a string of targeted attacks by Israeli forces against key members from Hamas, Islamic Jihad and Fateh movements.
An army spokesman said Wednesday that four Hamas militants had been arrested earlier this week for another shooting attack last Friday near Hebron which left two settlers dead.
Army radio quoted the army commander for the Hebron area, Noam Tibon, as saying that despite the latest Hamas arrests "there should be no expectation that this will bring an end to the attacks."
A Hamas militant was shot dead by Israeli troops on Wednesday outside his shop in Hebron, where some 400 extremist Jewish settlers live among a total Palestinian population of some 120,000.
Another four Palestinians were killed in fighting that followed an Israeli assault on the Khan Yunis refugee camp that witnesses said was some of the worst violence in the area in weeks.
In other violence on Thursday, there was an exchange of fire between Israeli troops and armed Palestinians in the West Bank village of al-Khadr near Bethlehem, witnesses said, but no injuries were reported, according to AFP.
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