Palestinians out, foreign workers in: How Israel is remaking its labor force
Israeli Border Police officers detain Palestinians who attempted to enter Israel illegally to work after hiding inside a rubbish truck, Al-Za’im checkpoint, Jerusalem, 23 March 2026
Charlotte Ritz-Jack and Dana Mills report in +972 on 6 May 2026:
A garbage truck’s tailgate opens slowly. Inside, around 70 Palestinian men are packed tightly together, their eyes struggling to adjust to the light after what appears to have been a suffocating journey. They shield their eyes as flashlights illuminate their faces. Israeli police officers point rifles at them from close range and shout commands, causing some of the men to instinctively raise their hands. One by one, they are pulled off the truck, one arm forced behind their backs, and led away into custody.
The nearly 10-minute video released by the Israeli police on April 13, shortly after the vehicle was intercepted on the highway connecting the Tel Aviv metropolitan area and the occupied West Bank, captures the aftermath of an attempted crossing into Israel by Palestinian laborers without permits. Treated as though they were dangerous terrorists, these men wanted little more than to make a living so they could provide for their families.
For decades, employment in low-wage sectors inside Israel — particularly construction, agriculture, and other forms of manual labor — has been a cornerstone of Palestinian livelihoods in the occupied territories, where Israel’s stifling of the economy keeps salaries low and unemployment high. Before October 7, 2023, such workers injected an estimated $380 million per month into local markets. In some towns in the West Bank, more than 90 percent of men depended on jobs inside Israel.
Today, these opportunities have all but vanished. After October 7, over 200,000 Palestinians from the West Bank and Gaza — including 150,000 permit holders from the West Bank, an estimated 50,000 working without permits, and 18,500 from Gaza — were barred from entering Israel, ostensibly due to “security concerns.”