EREZ, ISRAEL Israeli farmer Ido Seter walks near the avocado plantation. We are in the Erez kibbutz just three kilometers from the Gaza border.
Ripe fruits are lying everywhere on the ground. The harvest has barely been able to be done, because the Palestinian workers have not been able to participate in the work.
Before the Hamas attack on Israel on October 7, he worked in Israel daily about 150,000 Palestinians living in the West Bank and over 18,000 in Gaza. Israel revoked all these work permits after the Hamas attack. This has resulted in a severe labor shortage, especially in fields and construction sites.
– We can harvest maybe half of the crop, says Seter.
Seter is the managing director of the 250-hectare plantations spread over the territories of the Erez and Or Haner kibbutzim, where citrus fruits are grown in addition to avocados.
Here are the kibbutzim:
The Hamas attack came in the middle of the harvest season. Before the Gaza war, during the harvest season, up to 70-80 percent of the farm workers were Palestinians living in the West Bank.
– They were a very important workforce for us. We have tried to fix the situation with the help of Israeli volunteers, but they are not professionals, says Seter.
In addition, Thais, an important foreign workforce for Israel, worked in the fields. They too left the country after the Hamas attack.
visited the Erez kibbutz at the end of November during the ceasefire between Israel and Hamas. Settlement centers near the Gaza border had been declared closed military zones. The inhabitants had been evacuated, and there were now piles of tanks and other army equipment on the outskirts of the small idyllic villages.
Israeli soldiers are now patrolling the deserted border area:
Work permits benefit everyone
It has been estimated that the loss of Palestinian labor will even cost Israel more than 760 million euros in a month. For example, in the construction industry, up to a third of the workforce has been Palestinians in normal times.
For the Palestinians, the bill is even greater.
Palestinians working in Israel responded one fifth of the labor force in the Palestinian territories. They brought about three billion euros into the Palestinian Authority’s economy every year. At the end of last year, unemployment on the West Bank rose from 14 percent to 30 percent.
The cancellation of work permits, together with other effects of the war in Gaza, has pushed the economy to the brink of collapse not only in Gaza but also in the West Bank.
Palestinians have been a very important labor force for Israel in low-paid fields. At times, Israel has been accused of neglecting the rights of Palestinian workers. On the other hand, Palestinians earn many times more in Israel compared to jobs in the Palestinian territories. This supports the Palestinian Authority’s economy, which is why Israel’s security service Shin Bet considers Palestinian work permits to be a guarantee of security as well.
At the same time, work permits have been one of the few avenues through which Israelis living in isolation from each other and Palestinians living in the West Bank and Gaza Strip have been able to meet each other.
Ido Seter says that his agricultural company employed the same people for more than ten years. Gazan merchants had also become familiar on the kibbutz after Israel began issuing them work permits in 2021.
Thousands of Palestinians ended up in Israeli prisons
The attack by Hamas on October 7 changed everything. The fighters who invaded Israel killed about 1,200 people and took more than 250 hostages. Among the dead was also Palestinian agricultural workers.
– Fortunately, it was Saturday, i.e. a day off, when our employees were at home in Länsiranta, Seter says.
At the time of the attack, Seter himself was at home with his wife and adult daughter in the Kfar Aza kibbutz, which was also attacked by Hamas.
In the video below, Seter tells how he and his family survived the attack:
A harsh fate also awaited Gazan workers who were in Israel at the time of the attack.
The Israeli army captured some of them thousands of in the aftermath of the attack for weeks without charges. Several media and non-governmental organizations that have investigated the cases report on the abuse of detainees and the inhumane prison conditions, where many even died.
In November, Israel deported at least some of the captured workers to Gaza, which is suffering from a humanitarian crisis.
“People just want to live a good life”
Israel has restored work permits only to Palestinians working in its illegal settlements in the West Bank. Employers in Israel are now pressuring the country’s government to restore all Palestinian work permits, but the radical right wing of the government in particular strongly opposes this.
The Israeli government is trying to remedy the situation by attracting labor, especially from India. However, no proper solution has been found.
In late February, the Israeli army allowed residents of Erez and several other kibbutzim near Gaza to return to their homes. Seter says that the situation with the harvest seems to be better than expected. About two-thirds of it has been implemented.
However, everyday life is still far from normal. Hamas terrorists killed dozens of residents in some of the kibbutzim. Besides that, there is enough reconstruction.
However, Seter does not believe that the Hamas attack will affect the attitude of the kibbutz residents towards the Palestinians who have worked there for a long time.
– We have worked together in the fields even when rockets have been flying over our heads from Gaza, Seter says.
He hopes that the old employees will be allowed to return to their jobs.
– The people we know just want to feed their children and live a good, peaceful life.