Over 100 teachers in Gaza to apply for Qatari job opportunities
July 27, 2015 5:40 P.M. (Updated: July 27, 2015 6:04 P.M.)
http://www.maannews.com/Content.aspx?id=766677

GAZA CITY (Ma'an) -- More than 100 Palestinian teachers in the Gaza Strip
will be granted permission to leave the besieged territory to apply for work
in Qatar, the Israeli Civil Administration and Palestinian officials said
Monday.

Israel's Coordinator of Government Affairs in the Territories (COGAT) said
that coordination has been granted for 169 teachers to leave Gaza via the
Erez crossing and Allenby Bridge on July 28.

Muhammad Mushtaha, director of Mushataha Tourism, Travelling and Hajj
Affairs, said arrangements had been made for more than 100 teachers,
including 69 women, to leave Gaza for Amman to take tests and undergo
interviews for work opportunities in the Gulf state.

Buses will leave from the tourism company's headquarters in Gaza and take
the teachers to the Erez crossing and then to the Israeli-Jordanian
controlled border Allenby Bridge crossing in the occupied West Bank.

The office of Qatar’s representative to the Gaza strip and head of the Gaza
Reconstruction Committee, Muhammad al-Ahmadi, will follow up with the
necessary procedures to facilitate the teachers' passage to Qatar via
Jordan.

Al-Ahmadi said that Qatari Emir Tamim Bin Hamad al-Thani approved the
teaching jobs in order to provide work opportunities for Gazans.

The Palestinian ambassador announced last month that Qatar was taking
"practical steps" to create work opportunities for up to 20,000
Palestinians.

Palestinian Prime Minister Rami Hamdallah initially met with the Qatari emir
in January 2014 to request that Qatar allow Palestinians to work there in
order to help reduce unemployment rates in Palestine.

The agreement that followed ended 20 years in which Palestinians had been
unable to apply for work in the prosperous Gulf state.

There are around 20,000 Palestinians already working in Qatar who have been
living there for decades, before restrictions on work visas came into place.