IOA assaults WB workers, endorses tough punishment against those helping them

[ 25/01/2010 - 11:02 AM ]

OCCUPIED JERUSALEM, (PIC)-- Israeli occupation authority's (IOA) border policemen captured nine Palestinian workers east of occupied Jerusalem on Sunday and beat them up for trying to enter the holy city for work without having permits. Relatives of the workmen said that the border guards used riffle butts and batons to attack the workers who suffered fractures all over their bodies. Hussein Salah, the father of one of those laborers, said that his son Rani, 26, was severely battered and that his teeth were broken and could not walk. Meanwhile, the Israeli government on Sunday endorsed a draft law tabled by the internal security minister that would increase the penalty on those helping Palestinian West Bank workers in entering Palestine occupied in 1948 for work without permit. Daily Yediot Ahronot said that the parliament has to approve the law before its application, noting that it was meant to obstruct entry of thousands of West Bank Palestinians into Palestine occupied in 1948. It added that 77,000 foreign workers are officially registered out of whom there 28,000 from the West Bank while tens of thousands others work without permits. The new law increases the imprisonment penalty on anyone carrying Palestinian workers to a sentence ranging between three to five years especially those using public or private vehicles and allows the police to confiscate the vehicle for 30 days.