Israel Revoked a Palestinian’s Work Permit. When He Tried to Cross the Wall, They Shot Him and Left Him to Die.

For multiple years Arafat Qaddous worked construction jobs in Israel He was one of around Palestinians living in the occupied West Bank with permits from the Israeli personnel to cross the separation wall into Israeli territory as a laborer With his lawful employment inside the Green Line which separates the West Bank from Israel he was able to go back and forth from his hometown of Iraq Burin near Nablus in the north to whichever Israeli city offered work Before the Covid pandemic the -year-old Qaddous s work in Israel sustained his wife and five children His brother Qusai disclosed Arafat s living conditions worsened over the years as work opportunities dried up during the pandemic his family s requirements grew and the West Bank s financial system tanked My brother risked his life because he needed to provide for his family There are hardly any jobs in the West Bank Qusai reported and prices of food and goods are extremely high Things got even worse after October Israel indefinitely paused Palestinian workers permits after Hamas s attack and Qaddous lost his permit So when an opportunity presented itself a job in Taybeh inside Israel he took a chance My brother risked his life because he needed to provide for his family at a time when the economic situation was complicated Qusai stated The decision to cross the wall would prove deadly for Qaddous On April Qaddous drove to the barrier Capped with barbed wire the wall is over meters tall and runs more than kilometers Qaddous hoped to jump over it and catch a ride from East Jerusalem to Taybeh He chose a section of the barrier that separates the Palestinian side of the town of Al-Ram from the Israeli section Qaddous paid a few local Palestinian men shekels or The men provided the ladder for getting up the wall a rope for getting down the other side and transit to the job site The men served as lookouts throughout the navigating Qaddous climbed the ladder then mayhem broke out The lookouts spotted an Israeli police jeep Qaddous fell to the ground The fall did not kill him straightaway Qusai explained Israeli police spotted him as he lay on the ground with a serious head injury and prevented an ambulance from reaching him He bled out When they were sure he was dead they allowed paramedics to take his body Shooting Workers Forty-four Palestinian workers have died trying to cross the wall since October when Israeli government revoked almost all permits according to the Palestinian Workers Union The deaths along with serious injuries inflicted by leadership happened while workers were being chased by Israeli police beaten shot at or fell after jumping off the separation barrier The injuries have been growing more serious Palestinians are increasingly being shot by Israel s limit police especially in the legs following an order from far-right Israeli Minister of National Defense Itamar Ben-Gvir according to the Israeli news outlet Walla Since the start of at least Palestinians have been shot in the legs by confines police at the Israeli separation wall near Jerusalem including one this week who was shot in the leg when Israeli forces opened fire according to the Red Crescent Israel s occupation has shaped the West Bank s business sector for nearly six decades creating a structure in which Palestinians are largely prevented from building a self-sustaining economic activity and instead pushed into dependency on work in Israel itself or in its illegal settlements Before the Gaza genocide got underway in October almost percent all Palestinian laborers worked in Israel and or its illegal West Bank settlements mostly in construction and agriculture That number nosedived to percent directly after the Hamas-led attack on Israel set off an Israeli onslaught Before October around a quarter million Palestinians with and without permits used to commute daily from the Occupied Palestinian Territories including from Gaza according to Shaher Saad the secretary-general of the Palestinian Workers Union Currently fewer than Palestinian laborers with permits trip to Israel for work with permits The drastic reduction cut off a vital liquidity lifeline that provided them with wages to times higher than what they would earn in the occupied territories where unemployment is more than percent nationally about percent in Gaza and percent in the West Bank Related Trump s Gaza Ceasefire Deal Is Already Failing Palestinians Additionally since October Israel has staunched the flow of tax revenue to the Palestinian Authority the home-rule Palestinian governing body in the West Bank Israel has withheld and delayed transfers of the revenues back to the Palestinians in contravention of the Oslo Accords the diplomatic agreement that established the PA and set the stage for a two-state approach whose prospects have all but vanished With population salaries hit by the withheld tax revenue and cash running increasingly short about Palestinians with no permits continue to cross into Israel illegally despite the increased menace of the Israeli crackdown according to Saad Read our complete coverage Israel s War on Gaza For years Israel has regarded Palestinians multiple of whom work in low-skilled positions as a pool of cheap labor Bringing them into the Israeli labor industry was presented as a way to boost Palestinian living standards on the assumption that hardship breeds resistance Economic gains and financial reliance on Israel on the other hand would deter Palestinians from challenging the status quo helping maintain Israeli dominance A structure was created wherein any worker can easily be replaced by the thousands desperate for permits At the same time however Palestinian workers were far from equal in the workforce With no guaranteed sick leave no pension delayed or denied benefits and with work permits tied to a specific employer a structure was created wherein any worker can easily be replaced by the thousands desperate for permits Palestinian laborers were cheap and disposable And their mistreatment has worsened since October according to Mohammad Blidi who heads the workers union in Tulkarem a Palestinian city near the separation wall in the northern West Bank As an occupying power Israel is legally obliged to provide work for Palestinians and to respect international labor laws Blidi reported What is happening in reality is far from it On a daily basis Palestinian workers are subject to humiliation and beatings Laborers From Gaza On the day of the October attacks Israel detained thousands of Palestinian workers from Gaza who were in working on permits inside Israel Although they had the necessary Israeli-issued permission they were held for a month at least a large number of beaten and interrogated That the detained workers were legally in Israel with permits and the attendant safeguard vetting according to Blidi suggests they were detained mainly because they had come from Gaza Related Dozens of Gaza Health Workers Are Still Disappeared in Israeli Detention The arrests were carried out secretly and illegally according to Gisha an Israeli group that advocates for Palestinians right of movement There was no legal basis for moving the workers into detention centers the group explained and they were effectively disappeared with Israel refusing to disclose the workers identities and whereabouts Numerous of the workers described being mistreated in detention left without food water medication a mattress or toilet access They endured harsh violence and psychological abuse reporting torture and degrading recovery Israeli soldiers seized all cash and mobile phones from the workers and two died in Israeli custody In one situation a -year-old Palestinian man from Gaza City who worked in the Israeli city of Ashkelon on the day of the attack had to flee to Hebron when news came out that laborers from Gaza were being targeted by Israeli police Since he could not go back to Gaza he hunkered down with several other workers in the southern West Bank city awaiting his fate the man who requested anonymity for fear of his safety noted in an interview Then he received word that his pregnant wife and four of his children two boys and two girls had been killed in an Israeli airstrike in Gaza City Only one child survived but the boy s leg was seriously injured and he lost an eye in the attack Just two days into mourning the worker was awakened by a loud explosion in the pre-dawn hours Israeli soldiers blew up the door to the house he was staying in and detained him along with the others They tied our hands behind our backs and blindfolded us before beating us he recalled They took us to the Israeli settlement of Kiryat Arba and from there to another prison that they didn t disclose For nine days we endured tortuous interrogations Every day they demanded different questions about Gaza I informed them I m just a worker He was once again transferred to another prison for a day and in the dead of night he and several other workers were dumped at the perimeter with Gaza They all entered the Strip by foot I was in the south and couldn t go back to Gaza City he reported I couldn t bury my wife and children I couldn t say goodbye to them It took days for him to be reunited with his son They moved into a tattered tent that flooded with the latest winter storms He disclosed that working in Israel he had been able to save over It s all gone now the man reported I only have four shekels about in my pocket I used to be able to work and provide for my family But now there is no life The post Israel Revoked a Palestinian s Work Permit When He Tried to Cross the Wall They Shot Him and Left Him to Die appeared first on The Intercept