#9 Muslims in the Israeli Labour Market

In the aftermath of the outbreak of the war between Israel and Gaza, Israel decided to send back a large number of cross-border workers from Gaza that were working in Israel. It may sound very surprising now in the light of recent events, but there was actually a fairly large labour force commuting from Gaza into Israel. These workers have now been accused of having collected intelligence to prepare the October 7th attacks, have been detained and interrogated, with allegations of torture.

The Israeli government that preceded the current one actually expanded the number of work permits granted to workers from Gaza, a decision that the Netanyahu government, despite its much more hardline position vis-a-vis Palestinians, did not dare reverse. One of the hopes of allowing more Palestinian workers into Israel, including from Gaza, was to ease the economic situation and undermine support for Hamas by allowing Gazans to earn higher wages in Israel. But besides serving a possible security objective, Palestinian workers also fulfilled an important function in the Israeli labour market: Gaza and the West Bank have been over the years a significant source of low-wage labour for Israeli companies, especially in the construction sector.

According to recent estimates, there were nearly 150’000 workers from Gaza and the West Bank working in Israel and the Jewish illegal settlements in the West Bank. If we consider that the Israeli labour force is about 6,7 million, that’s a bit more than 2%. However, Palestinians represent a much larger share of the workforce in some specific sectors, especially construction, where nearly a quarter of the workforce is constituted by Palestinians with work permits (p. 30 of the report). It is also important to highlight that besides the people from the West Bank and Gaza who are not Israeli citizens and are therefore subject to a work permit system, 18.1% of Israeli citizens in Israel are Muslim. These also generally occupy a subordinate position in the labour market.

The ITUC produced an interesting report in 2021 on the situation of Palestinian workers in Israel, highlighting the low wages and potential for exploitation induced by the work permit system controlled by Israeli authorities. As with any employer-sponsored permit system, it induces a dependency of workers on their employer, and therefore creates greater potential for exploitation. This is because permits tie workers to a specific employer if they want to be able ...