Palestinian workers in Israel in the face of Corona ... forced expatriation to secure a livelihood

Atef Douglas-Nablus

It was not an easy choice for the 32-year-old Palestinian youth, Ibrahim Hilal, to go to work inside the Green Line and stay there, away from his children and family, before the crossings were completely closed between the Occupying Power and the Palestinian territories to prevent the spread of the Corona virus.

Gradually, Israel announced that it would allow thousands of Palestinian workers to overnight inside, provided that the employers were responsible for providing their housing and all their needs, and the Palestinian government gave the workers a decision taken last Wednesday, ending on Sunday morning, to arrange their sleep in Israel before closing the crossings.

Once the deadline expired, the numbers began to unfold. Of the 150,000 workers with special permits, about sixty thousand of them took the decision to stay, most of them worked in the construction sector, and Israel pursued the illegal (smugglers) and forced them to return.

Among the three brothers working in the occupied interior, Ibrahim endured this trouble and was absent from his wife and five children for about sixty days, as the decision states, this is his opportunity to maintain his work and livelihood and pay his financial obligations, estimated at more than four hundred dollars a month, in addition to his family’s expense At least nine hundred dollars a month.

Ibrahim earns his work in the profession of Kasara - as he tells Al-Jazeera Net - about $ 350 USD per week, and he does not get a third of it in the West Bank, if he finds work originally due to the closure, as he maintains a continuous income for his family, in addition to obtaining all his requirements from masks Sterilizers used during work.

Ibrahim anticipated the decision of the occupation and the Palestinian Authority to close the crossings by days, in an attempt to spare his family any harm and infection with the virus as a result of his daily move from his workplace in Israel to his home in Qalqilya.

Undo and lose jobs
Palestinian economic data indicates that the income of "Israeli workers" - who reach about two hundred thousand workers (legal and smuggled) - is estimated at more than two million US dollars per month, but it will decline to "less than a third" if the closure continues until the end of next April for fear of corona.

Like the laborer Ibrahim Hilal, Sufyan Balawneh, 34, who works in a drilling company, found hope that he would get an overnight work, and thus his fear of a long weeks' closure had faded, as he suffers from a difficult economic situation, and he must fulfill his financial obligations.

Fortunately for Hilal and Ballouneh, they have a permit provided by the employer, and obliges him to provide a place to stay overnight, which was not found by the worker Fadi Hamdan, who bought a month-long permit of seven hundred dollars, and only used it for two weeks due to the closure of the crossings.

The Secretary-General of the Federation of Palestinian Trade Unions, Shaher Saad, says that stopping "Israeli workers" or decreasing their numbers means losing less than a third of their monthly income, which exceeds two million US dollars, and thus their contribution to the GDP fell to 35%, which will increase unemployment and increasing poverty among Palestinians. , "And it hovers about 30% each."

At least 25,000 Palestinians from the West Bank and Israel will likely lose their jobs until the end of next April.

But the "worst" in Saad’s opinion - which he gave to Al-Jazeera Net - that Palestinian capital (the private sector) is not only likely to absorb these unemployed workers, but also does not compensate them, adding that “70% of Palestinian capital circumvents and violates workers’ rights. ” .

Takaful programs
According to the statement of the coordinator of the occupation government, since Sunday morning, crossings with Gaza and the West Bank have been closed, and no one will be allowed to enter workers and merchants, and even holders of special permits.

This is an attempt to control the situation further, and prevent the spread of the Corona virus, according to Palestinian Labor Minister Nasri Abu Jaish, who called on Israel through the "crisis management cell" to provide decent accommodations in all respects for workers, and to stop their smuggling, demanding that the entry of settlement workers be stopped as well.

Abu Jaish tells Al-Jazeera Net that these "precautionary measures" are necessary to protect the Palestinian person, despite its difficult consequences on the labor market, "a slogan that all countries raise to challenge Corona."

The Palestinians have demonstrated their defiance of this emergency, according to the spokesman for the Palestinian Ministry of Labor Azmi Abdel Rahman, with the cooperation and cooperation between various institutions, such as the Ministry of Labor and Social Development, to create "solidarity programs" that reflect this solidarity.

Before packing his belongings leaving his country and saying goodbye to his family, Ibrahim Hilal and other thousands of workers knew that their return might take a little longer, but this absence will suffice them with the evil of the question and provide a living drenched in blood.