The Israeli Employers Who Want Their Palestinian Workers Back
Key takeaways
- He showered and went to sleep in a small private room that his employer had built for him.
- The LedeReporting and commentary on what you need to know today.
- For the next six weeks, as the Israeli military bombarded and then invaded Gaza, Abu Naeem’s employer persuaded him to stay in Israel, afraid of what might happen if he crossed back to the West Bank.
An Israeli officer directing traffic at the Qalandia checkpoint, between Ramallah and Jerusalem.Photograph by Sergey Ponomarev / NYT / Redux Save this story Save this story Save this story Save this story Early on the morning of October 7, 2023, Abu Naeem, a forty-two-year-old from Ramallah, in the West Bank, finished an overnight shift at a large produce-distribution center in Israel. He showered and went to sleep in a small private room that his employer had built for him. Then he woke to sirens and distant explosions. Somewhere above him, he could hear the cracks of interceptor missiles colliding with incoming rockets. Abu Naeem felt as if he were in a movie. He soon learned that Hamas and other militant groups had attacked Israel, killing about twelve hundred people.
The LedeReporting and commentary on what you need to know today.
For the next six weeks, as the Israeli military bombarded and then invaded Gaza, Abu Naeem’s employer persuaded him to stay in Israel, afraid of what might happen if he crossed back to the West Bank. Israel soon barred nearly two hundred thousand Palestinian laborers from its workforce. “The economic Cabinet decided that Palestinian workers should not return to Israel,” Nir Barkat, Israel’s economy minister, declared in late 2023. Abu Naeem was able to avoid detection by Israeli authorities only because he spoke fluent Hebrew. He learned how to make himself small, invisible, and useful.