GAZA, Aug. 13 (Xinhua) -- More than 95 percent of the industrial factories in the Gaza Strip have stopped production due to the closure of the commercial crossing point of Kerem Shalom between Israel and the coastal enclave, officials said Monday.
Ali Hayek, chairman of The Palestinian Businessmen Association in Gaza said in an emailed press statement that after most of the industrial factories stopped its production, "around 75,000 workers and labours remained unemployed."
Last month, Israel closed the only commercial crossing point between southeast Gaza Strip and Israel to exert pressure on Islamic Hamas movement to stop releasing arson balloons and kites from Gaza into Israel which caused severe losses in Israel.
The commercial crossing point wasn't completely shut down, where Israel only allowed basic needs of food to be shipped into the Gaza Strip and prevented hundreds of various kinds of raw-materials used for industrial and agricultural products.
"Unfortunately, the closure of the only main commercial crossing point of Kerem Shalom and banning the shipment of raw-material had left more than 95 percent of factories in the Gaza Strip inoperative," said Hayek.
He warned that the ongoing closure of the commercial crossing and the closure of factories "would increase the rates of poverty and unemployment in the Gaza Strip that would lead to more humanitarian disasters due to the Israeli tightening measures."
Israel has been imposing a tight blockade on the Gaza Strip and considered it a "hostile entity" right after Islamic Hamas movement had violently seized control of the territory and routed Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas security forces.
Meanwhile, Jamal al-Khudari, a Palestinian independent lawmaker and chairman of the committee to defy the Israeli blockade said in a statement that Gaza crossing points are humanitarian and have to be excluded from any political or security disputes.
He unveiled that after closing Kerem Shalom commercial crossing point last month, losses in the Gaza Strip economy have reached 100 million U.S. dollars.
