Plight of migrant laborers killed, held hostage in Middle East exposes Israel’s reliance on overseas workforce
An Indian laborer in Israel was killed and several other migrant workers injured on March 4, 2024, in a missile attack launched from Lebanon by Hamas-aligned Hezbollah. They are not the first migrant workers in Israel to get caught up in the monthslong fighting. Dozens of other farmworkers, agricultural apprentices and caregivers from countries including Thailand, Nepal, Tanzania, Cambodia, the Philippines, Sri Lanka and Moldova were murdered or taken hostage during the Hamas attack of Oct. 7. The sizable number of non-Israeli workers affected by the current war has surprised some onlookers while shining a light on Israel’s reliance on temporary migrant workers. But as researchers who study the proliferation of migrant workers around the world, we know how labor migration programs have transformed nearly all societies, including Israel’s. The long-running Israeli-Palestinian conflict has shaped Israel’s migrant worker history – and has contributed to the globalization of the...