With less than three weeks before the Israeli withdrawal from the Gaza Strip, Palestinians are busy preparing flags to fly over the settlements once they are evacuated.

The Palestinian National Authority has ordered 60,000 white-black-green-and-red Palestinian national flags, which are being sewn in workshops in the Gaza City, for the Israeli pullout from all 21 Gaza settlements due to start on Aug. 17.

In addition, some 35,000 flags of the ruling Fatah movement and about 20,000 others carrying pictures of Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas and his predecessor Yasser Arafat are also being made.

The mass production of flags has created hundreds of jobs in the impoverished Gaza Strip, whose economy has been devastated by more than four years of bloody conflict with Israel, which was put to an end by a ceasefire deal in February this year.

Source: Xinhua