From the Liveblog of
Thursday, May 12, 2016
Hamas police arrest Gazan protesting high unemployment
Police in the Hamas-run Gaza Strip arrest a young Palestinian for protesting over high unemployment in the coastal enclave, the Palestinian news agency Ma’an reports.
The Gaza-based Al-Mezan Center for Human Rights says that 15 unemployed university graduates on Monday launched a sit-in and hunger strike in the southern Gaza city of Rafah to protest the high unemployment and poor living conditions in the Strip.
Ma’an quotes the center as saying that two police cars went to the scene of the protest and arrested 24-year-old Ikrima Mitwalli, and dispersed the rest of the protesters.
The Palestinian Central Bureau of Statistics says there were 193,000 unemployed people in Gaza in 2015, some 41% of the working-age population, Ma’an reports. Trade unions in Gaza, however, place the unemployment rate closer to 60%.
The Times of Israel Community.