18-11-2009
IOF Incursion into Erez Industrial Zone, Arrests 8 including a Child
At app. 10:30am on Wednesday 18 November 2009, a force from the Israeli Occupation Forces (IOF) moved approximately 300 meters into the north of the Gaza Strip. The unit moved firing intensively. It took positions in industrial premises that had been destroyed by IOF prior to the Israeli redeployment around from the Gaza Strip in 2005. The force rounded a group of Palestinian workers who were removing rubble from the area and arrested 8 of them; including a child, and took them to Israel. In the evening hours of the same day all the detainees were released. The unit withdrew with two donkey carts, which the workers used to remove the rubble of destroyed buildings. IOF moved the two carts to the Palestinian side an hour later. Al Mezan's investigations indicated that the workers remove the rubble of the destroyed buildings and sell it to brick factories, which recycle it into bricks. This is the only source of bricks for construction that is available in the Gaza Strip, which suffers from acute shortage in construction materials due the Israeli siege.
