"Plight of migrant laborers killed, held hostage in Middle East exposes Israel’s reliance on overseas workforce,"

An Indian laborer in Israel was killed and several other migrant workers injured on March 4, 2024, in a missile attack launched from Lebanon by Hamas-aligned Hezbollah...

The sizable number of non-Israeli workers affected by the current war has surprised some onlookers while shining a light on Israel’s reliance on temporary migrant workers...

When the first Palestinian uprising, or intifada, began in 1987, some members of the Israeli public came to see [Palestinian] workers as a security risk...

To make up for the shortfall, Israeli employers convinced the government to vastly expand the recruitment of temporary workers to take their place...

Migrant workers in Israel, like their counterparts the world over, have long since been vulnerable to exploitation...

Meanwhile, Israeli government policies have attempted to keep migrants outside of society by confining them to specific industries, obligating them to leave the country upon completion of their labour contract, excluding them from the public health system and prohibiting them from marrying or engaging in romantic relations while in Israel.

And Authorities have paid little attention to labour standards, leaving farmworkers, for example, vulnerable to wage theft, terrible housing and exposure to pesticides without proper protection...

Since Oct. 7, Israeli authorities have ended those Palestinians’ work permits and tried to recruit thousands of new workers to the fields and construction sites to make up for the shortfall...

Though foreign governments are able to guarantee their citizens few protections in Israel, thousands have queued up in their home countries in search of a contract.Once in Israel, they join the vast majority of migrant workers who have elected to remain in the country despite the Oct. 7 attack and its aftermath.

Like millions of migrant workers the world over in search of economic progress or survival, they have calculated, for now, that earning higher wages abroad is worth taking significant personal risks. While helping keep the Israeli economy running during wartime, these migrant workers remain in the path of rockets—as the death of Pat Nibin Maxwell has illustrated.