TEL AVIV, November 3. /TASS/. Israel is severing all ties with the Gaza Strip and prohibits all of Palestinian residents of the enclave from working in Israel, the office of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said.

"Israel cuts off all contact with Gaza. There will be no more Palestinian workers from Gaza and the workers who were in Israel on the day the war broke out will be returned to Gaza," Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s office said in a statement.

"The political and security cabinet decided to deduct from the funds of the Palestinian Authority all the funds intended for the Gaza Strip, in addition to the offset carried out according to law of funds paid to terrorists and their families," the statement says.

Tensions in the Middle East flared up again on October 7 after militants from the radical Palestinian group Hamas launched a surprise incursion into Israeli territory from the Gaza Strip, killing residents of border communities and taking people, including women, children and the elderly, hostage. Hamas described its attack as a response to the aggressive actions of Israeli authorities against the Al-Aqsa Mosque on the Temple Mount in Jerusalem’s Old City. Israel announced a total blockade of Gaza and launched ground operations in the enclave, also carrying out air strikes on targets in the Strip, as well as on certain areas in Lebanon and Syria. Clashes are also taking place in the West Bank.