Palestinian workers in Israel .. between the threat of corona and the throwing of barriers

Muhammad Wedd and Atef Douglas, occupied Jerusalem

"Death by corona virus or starvation," in this phrase, Palestinian worker Yahya Khader Abdel-Rahman, 33, summarized his decision, similar to the tens of thousands of Palestinian workers who chose to stay and work in Israel, which daily records high rates of infection with the Corona virus.

Despite the concerns of HIV infection, about fifty thousand Palestinian workers - out of 150,000 in possession of permits - were driven by the difficult living conditions and the lack of work opportunities in the occupied West Bank; to be present since the beginning of the week in the workplace in Israel in the most severe conditions of hunger, and the risks increase with They may be infected with the virus.

But the fate of these workers - even if they guarantee a livelihood - will be blown away by the wind by the start of Israel to implement the comprehensive closure on Wednesday evening, in light of fears that they will be returned to the West Bank, knowing that Palestinian Prime Minister Muhammad Shtayyeh appealed to them to return to their homes for their safety.

The journey of death
In anticipation of the measures to limit freedom of movement in Israel, the young Hassan Tannina (from the town of Tarqumiya, Hebron District) settled with a group of ten workers to work in Israel in a construction workshop in the south of the country, but despite having work and overnight permits, they were surprised by the police raid of the workshop following a report submitted by Israelis.

The building workshop was not only a workplace, but also the residence and home of the young man and his fellow workers, as the Israeli contractor barely provided them with mattresses and blankets in abandoned rooms in the workshop without a kitchen or bathrooms.

A living
"Corona and death are better than this life," Hassan says. "There is nothing of what we were promised. The workshop is for us the place of work and overnight as well, yet it lacks the simplest ingredients."

He explained that many Israelis treat the Palestinian worker as a virus, as there is no party to monitor and implement the obligations that the contractor made when approving his request to bring workers and overnight to Israel for a month or two.

Occupation racism
Perhaps what happened with the Palestinian youth, Malik Ghanem, summarizes the racism of Israel in dealing with the Palestinian worker. The Israeli soldiers threw him at the Beit Sir checkpoint near the city of Ramallah after doubts that he was infected with the Corona virus.

In the details that Ghanem tells Al-Jazeera Net - he descends from the village of Surra (west of Nablus) - he says that he was infected with a "regular" flu infection from one of the workers who stayed with him in the residence in Tel Aviv, where he works, and he suffers from a great decrease in immunity, being sick Liver.

He adds that the official of the company where he works, and when he felt sick and suspected of having a corona, called the Israeli ambulance who hesitated in the audience and asked for a transfer fee of about $ 150, and he transferred him after stalling the "Ikhloov" hospital in Tel Aviv, which he claimed did not deal with "cases" Sk. "

Cancellation of permits
After examining him outside the hospital, Ghanem says that the medical staff asked the Israeli police to transfer him to the West Bank claiming the expiry of his permit, which the young man denies, and he says that the occupation stopped the validity of permits for many workers, despite the lack of due date.

The Palestinian youth adds that the Israeli police did not observe my illness, despite the lack of results of the tests, and not knowing whether I was infected with the virus or not, but they handcuffed my hands and feet and threw me inside a military vehicle, and they transferred me to the Beit Sira checkpoint near the city of Ramallah, and asked me to walk towards the West Bank alone. "Although I am unable to move, my temperature has risen to forty degrees."

And one of the dozens of workers who were forcibly removed by the occupation after doubting their injury to Corona, and threw them at the military checkpoints.