Palestinian Workers in Israel and Coronavirus Vulnerability
MOHAMMED SAMAANA
05/19/2020
Belfast (Special to Informed Comment) - The novel coronavirus pandemic, by
its nature, highlights inequalities of race, class and gender in its
victims. Palestine is no different. The displacement of 720,000 Palestinians
from their homes by the Zionist project in 1948 was not a one-time event.
That catastrophe or "Nakba," marked by assaults on civilian populations and
massacres, is commemorated annually by Palestinians on May 15. The Nakba,
however, is ongoing, inasmuch as many of the descendants of the displaced,
in whose former homes Israelis now live, live in refugee camps in Gaza and
the West Bank under continued Israeli Occupation. These conditions of
squalor and inequality created by historic injustices form a fertile
breeding ground for Covid-19.
One of the vulnerable Palestinian groups is the workers who work inside
Israel. Many of these workers don't have permits to enter Israel so they
have to sneak into what used to be their own country where the homes of
their parents and grandparents stood.
Before the pandemic, about 100,000 Palestinian workers worked in Israel with
permits (each permit costs about US $450) and another 100,000 are estimated
to have worked there without permits. They are all subjected to
discrimination as they work without rights and get paid less than the
Israeli workers for doing the same job. This reflects Israeli racism and the
difficult economic situation the Palestinians have as a result of long
decades of Israeli occupation. The Palestinian economy was crippled further
by Oslo Accords which was signed by the PLO leadership and Israeli in 1993,
which instead of leading to peace entrenched and prolonged the Israeli
occupation of Palestinian land and water and ensured that the Palestinian
economy will always be dependent on Israel.
At the start of the pandemic the Palestinian Authority (PA) arranged with
Israel for 50,000 Palestinian workers to continue working in Israel mainly
in the construction sector. This came as a surprise, since it carried a huge
risk for the Palestinians - especially when the number of Israel Covid 19
cases is approaching 17000 and 266 deaths compared with 375 cases and two
deaths in Gaza and the West Bank.
This potential exposure is alarming considering that the Palestinian health
sector is fragile and underdeveloped as a result of Israeli policies. It
will not be able to cope with a corona outbreak, especially in the densely
populated Gaza Strip. They latter has been under an inhumane Israeli
blockade on civilian noncombatants since 2007 that has left Gaza with some
70 intensive care units (ICUs) and 62 ventilators. Hospitals are overcrowded
and overburdened. While medicine and food are not blockaded, the strangling
of the economy has left Gaza with a 42 percent unemployment rate and left
the population unable to pay for medicine or high-tech medical procedures.
The Occupation is a constant impediment to health care. When Palestinians in
the Jordan Valley of the West Bank recently set up a field clinic with tents
to deal with a Covid-19 outbreak, the Israeli Occupation military actually
destroyed it on the grounds that the Palestinians did not have a building
permit.
The labor arrangement with the Palestine Authority gave Israel the best of
both worlds, allowing it to keep its own people safe in lockdown while
maintaining economic activity in its construction sector by putting
Palestinian workers at risk. A few days after these arrangements, a widely
circulated video showed a Palestinian worker being dumped on a checkpoint by
Israeli officials after showing signs of infection. It turned out that he
didn't have the virus. Additionally, other Palestinian workers reported that
the accommodation conditions were inhumane, with 20 Palestinian workers
housed in one room, which obviously makes social distancing impossible.
Other workers were made to sleep at construction sites. These procedures
forced the PA to ask the Palestinian workers to return to the West Bank and
to self isolate for two weeks as it does not have enough resources to test
them all.
Not all of them did so and at least 12,000 of them stayed. Considering the
higher rates of corona cases in Israel, some Palestinians perceived the
workers as a source of threat to their own people and potential corona
carriers.
Workers who were interviewed by the media said that unlike advanced
economies, the PA is not offering them any payments for staying at home and
they will starve if they do not work. One worker said that he has a family
of eight to feed and he has no other source of income. Another worker said
that his fridge is empty and would rather to take the risk of catching the
virus than staying hungry at home. A third said that his only other option
is to beg in order to feed his children and even if he did, others do not
have the money to give him. Some of them had to stay because they were
threatened by their Israeli bosses that they will be sacked if they return
to their homes. Others were blackmailed by their bosses by delaying paying
their wages to force them to stay longer.
Unlike their Israeli counterparts, Palestinians work without pension, health
insurance or the right to join trade unions. Those who work without permits
are treated as undocumented aliens in their ancestral country and risk being
jailed and fined. The Pandemic highlighted once again the inhumane treatment
that the Palestinian workers are subjected to by Israel for long decades.
The international community has sometimes paid lip service to condemning the
Israeli occupation and the treatment of Palestinians, but has never taken
practical action to change the situation. The Trump administration does not
even consider these Israeli activities illegal, despite their contravention
of the Geneva Convention of 1949 on the treatment of occupied populations.