New Delhi: Ten Indian workers, stranded in the Al-Zaim village of the West Bank for over a month, received rescue from Israel’s Population and Immigration Authority. The workers had been lured with false promises of job offers, only to have their passports seized on arrival. Israeli reports of the incident on Thursday cited official sources.
False promises of jobs for workers
The Times of Israel reports that Palestinian operators took the workers to Al-Zaim, promising them jobs. However, upon their arrival, Palestinian operators confiscated their passports, purportedly to enable them to enter Israel illegally with their documents.
Israeli Defence Forces personnel were also involved in the operation, along with the Justice Ministry. Officials conducted an overnight operation to liberate the ensnared workers, initially brought to Israel for employment in the construction sector. They were soon relocated to a secure place, and investigators are in the process of trying to find out whether they were employed and making arrangements for the future.
Detecting Passport Misuse
But the IDF apparently spotted the fraudulent use of the Indian passports and only later gave them back to their original owners. The Palestinian assailants had tried to use these passports to slip through Israeli border crossings unnoticed, Ynetnews reported.
Israeli forces discovered the incident when they stopped several suspects during a regular inspection at a border crossing. Visual journalist Jesus Ochoa filed this report from Tijuana. The incident sheds light on ongoing issues of labour and migration in the region, especially in the wake of recent geopolitical developments.
Israel and India: An Overlooked Partnership
The incident comes against the backdrop of a dramatic surge in the number of Indian workers moving to Israel. The country saw nearly 16,000 Indian labourers come in last year. After the al-Qassam Brigades attack, Hamas led against Israel on October 7, 2023. Israel banned the entry of all Palestinian workers into its territory, which caused a further increase in Indian workers in several fields, especially construction.