Victoria Abdallah/AFP/Getty Images 11/15 Supporters of Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas hold placards and shout slogans during a rally in the West Bank city of Ramallah AFP/Getty Images 12/15 Supporters of Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas embrace after media prayers at a mosque in Ramallah EPA 13/15 Palestinian protesters hold placards as they shout slogans during a protest in the West Bank City of Ramallah EPA 14/15 Palestinian protesters shout slogans against US President Donald Trump near the West Bank city of Ramallah 15/15 Supporters of a Pakistani religious party rally against Donald Trump in Lahore EPA
Ms Abadla, a university graduate, was one of 11 Palestinian workers to have their licenses revoked – all of them in the West Bank’s Hebron Industrial Area – after finding out they were working near settlements in the disputed city.
The Israeli government’s decision to suspend Palestinian workers comes amid a worsening row between Israel and the Palestinian Authority over its policies and trade.
Israel’s Finance Minister Yuval Steinitz said in September that the Palestinian Authority, which governs part of the West Bank along with Israel, had been “profligate” and had failed to deliver any official work packages despite claiming to have received dozens of new packages, including $4bn in loans, in the past three years. Palestinians have accused a US watchdog of unfairly exposing their payments as fake.
“They want to freeze us out of the national economy – as a way to force us, as the Palestinians, to stop the negotiations so that they do not deal with us as a sovereign nation,” said Ms Abadla.
Israeli security forces arrested at least 100 Palestinians in Jerusalem and in the West Bank during the past month, including an 18-year-old college student, for allegedly violating a court-issued curfew after allegedly trying to throw stones at passing motorists.
The protests came as the US, along with international rights groups, pushed for a Palestinian state in the Gaza Strip amid increased Israeli air strikes on a Hamas terror tunnel network.
An Israeli attack on a tunnel linking Gaza to the Sinai Peninsula is also under investigation, according to the military.
The protest on Friday was led by a group calling on Israeli forces to end “occupation, oppression” of Palestinian territories and the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.
“The occupation is killing our youth. We are on the road of peaceful resistance,” it declared.
The activists and supporters said they had