After mass exodus, Israel's rush to replace foreign workers raises human rights concerns
'A situation like this is the perfect storm,' says human rights researcher
During an investigative trip to Israel in 2014, Nick McGeehan spoke with a shattered Thai worker who had recently seen a colleague killed when a rocket hit a remote farm field just north of the nation's border with Gaza. The worker said his team had been told to stay on the job even as the barrage continued during the war that year, McGeehan recalled.
"He was dreadfully upset at what had happened to his friend … They were just two young guys working out there together, you know? They were good buddies," said McGeehan, who at the time was an investigator for Human Rights Watch.
"He was furious that they'd been forced to work in the fields while everyone else was hiding in shelters."
Nearly a decade later, the foreign labour sector in Israel has again been caught in the crossfire of another war. Officials say the latest conflict has led to the loss of tens of thousands of workers from Thailand and Gaza, creating a labour shortage human rights experts fear will leave replacement workers at risk of exploitation as Israel seeks to quickly fill gaps left by the fleeing and the dead.
"A situation like this is the perfect storm, really, as Israel is desperate for workers, wants to get them cheap and wants to get them easy," said McGeehan. "And there will be countries out there who don't mind sending their workers over with no questions asked."
Some Israeli sectors rely on foreign workers
Like many wealthy Western nations, including Canada, Israel relies on workers from other countries to sustain the labour force in construction and agriculture because they take difficult, low-paying jobs that local workers don't want. Israel started recruiting for such work in the 1990s to replace Palestinians who had been doing the same jobs.
"[Israel] saw how convenient it is because its workers who come for limited time, they get the minimum wage and their accommodations are quite cheap because they're living in poor housing, working long days," said Assia Ladizhinskaya, a spokesperson for Kav LaOved, an Israeli human rights group.
A number of reports over the years have detailed the "abhorrent" conditions these workers face. One by Human Rights Watch in 2015 detailed how workers in the agricultural industry toiled for long hours well beyond the legal maximum, and stayed in makeshift housing with little health care or workers' rights — all while being paid far below minimum wage.
"Both the working conditions and living conditions that I saw were appalling," said McGeehan, who now runs his own organization, FairSquare, to investigate human rights abuses.
According to the Israeli government, there were roughly 30,000 Thai workers in Israel before Hamas attacked on Oct. 7, storming across the border killing more than 1,200 Israelis and 38 Thais.
Israel looks to India, Sri Lanka to fill gaps
The Israeli government has estimated that 10,000 farm workers have since left the country, while as many as 120,000 Palestinians had to abandon their Israeli construction work after the nation revoked their work permits as a result of the war.
Ladizhinskaya said volunteers are helping farming communities or kibbutzes near the Gaza Strip, but construction has been disrupted by the loss of so many hands.
"It's something that is making everybody quite miserable," she said, noting that workers "can't make a living and the employers don't know really what to do next."
In construction, Israel has already begun looking to countries like India and Sri Lanka to recruit replacement workers.
The Israeli Builder Association — created to represent various sectors across the nation's construction sector — said in a statement that it hoped to bring as many as 100,000 workers from India into the country to replace Palestinians whose Israeli permits were cancelled.
Michel Strawczynski, an economics professor at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, says the nation's government will move quickly to fill gaps.
"The government is starting to give new permits in order to change its situation," said Strawczynski, who advised the government on economic matters in his previous role at the Bank of Israel.
"My guess is that the [Palestinian workers] will be substituted completely by the beginning of 2024."
Some Thai workers want to return to Israel
Thai workers in Israel generally come from poorer regions of Thailand, especially the northeast, and take the jobs in Israel because they can earn as much as five times what they would at home.
Some of those who returned home as a result of the war have already told human rights groups like Ladizhinskaya's that they they hope to get back to Israel because they need the money.
According to Ladizhinskaya, Kav LaOved is trying to help make workers aware of their rights, but acknowledges it's difficult because "the economic interests sometimes aren't going together with the human interests."
McGeehan, whose organization recently issued a statement imploring India to ignore Israel's call for workers, says the exploitation of foreign workers is an international problem that can only be solved if nations rethink their migration and labour policies with a willingness to overhaul the system on which their economies have come to depend.
"There's no serious debate about how rich countries can bring in workers from developing, poorer countries and do it in a way that is beneficial to both," McGeehan said.
"Because right now, it tends to be beneficial to the wealthy countries and beneficial to the poor countries — and to their economies — but deeply damaging to the workers themselves."
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With files from Reuters