Israel/OPT: Around 16,000 Indian migrant workers recruited to replace Palestinian construction workers barred from entering Israel
"Indian workers replace Palestinians in Israel's construction sector", 21 December 2024
Wearing a safety belt, helmet and work boots, Raju Nishad navigates the scaffolding, hammering blocks that will form part of a building in a new neighbourhood in central Israel's town of Beer Yaakov.
While he and other Indians working alongside him do not look out of place on the expansive construction site, they are relative newcomers to Israel's building industry.
They are part of an Israeli government effort to fill a void left by tens of thousands of Palestinian construction workers barred from entering Israel since 7 October 2023.
Israel's latest wars with its regional neighbours and global accusations over its "war crimes" and "genocide" in Gaza did not stop Indian migrant workers from turning to Israel, where they are lured but what would be considered "high earnings" in comparison to what they would make back home.
Around 16,000 workers have come from India over the past year - and Israel has plans to bring thousands more.
Indians have been employed in Israel for decades as caregivers looking after elderly Israelis, while others work as diamond traders and IT professionals.
But since the war on Gaza, recruiters have launched a drive to bring Indians in for Israel's construction sector also.
Samir Khosla, chairman of Delhi-based Dynamic Staffing Services, which has sent about 500,000 Indians to work in more than 30 countries, has so far brought more than 3,500 workers to Israel, a new market for him.
Khosla himself arrived for the first time a month after 7 October, after the authorities urged for foreign workers in the construction industry, which ground to a halt when the Gaza war broke out...
He now looks to bring in up to 10,000 Indian labourers, as he has a large pool of skilled Indian workers across all trades...
Israeli researchers believe the number of Indians working in construction still does not match the number of Palestinians who did so before the war, and this is hampering the sector's overall growth...