YATTA: At dawn in mid-May, syed ayyad And dozens of other unemployed Palestinian men gathered beneath the high wall of concrete and barbed wire dividing the occupation west coast From israel,
A smuggler was there with ladders and ropes. Each person handed over the equivalent of $100. Ayyad Waited his turn while others climbed up.
The 30-year-old father of two young daughters had been out of work for a year. The debt was increasing. Rent had to be paid. On the Israeli side, there was the lure of work at a construction site. He just had to cross the wall.
“When we get to the point where you see that your children don’t have food,” he said, “the barrier of fear is broken.”
The year-long war in Gaza is echoing across the West Bank, where the World Bank has warned that Israeli sanctions preventing Palestinian workers from entering the country for work and the biggest wave of violence in decades. There is a danger of the economy collapsing due to.
Unemployment skyrocketed, rising from about 12% before the war to 30%. The Palestinian Economy Ministry says that last year, about 300,000 Palestinians in the West Bank, many of whom worked in Israel, have lost their jobs. According to the World Bank, in the first quarter of 2024, the region’s economy declined by 25%.
Desperate for jobs, some Palestinians are resorting to smuggling through the protected barrier and into Israel at great personal risk.
When they find them, Israeli security forces arrest them – or sometimes open fire. Palestinian authorities have no official statistics on workers killed or injured by Israeli fire trying to cross the barrier. The Associated Press spoke to the families of three Palestinians who said their relatives were killed in the attempted incursion.
“These people are being shot just trying to go to work,” said Assaf Adiv, director of MAAN, a labor union that focuses on Palestinian labor rights.
A Palestinian lost his life because of a wedding debt. Before the war, about 150,000 Palestinians from the West Bank were entering Israel legally each day, primarily to work in construction, manufacturing and agriculture.
After Hamas attacked Israel on October 7, Israeli authorities barred entry for most Palestinians, saying it was necessary for security. Thousands of Palestinians became unemployed overnight.
Iyad al-Najjar, a 47-year-old laborer from a village near the West Bank town of Yatta .
Then his son got married. The wedding cost the family $8,000. So Al-Najjar tried his luck again.
On August 26, three days after the marriage, he reached a hole in the barrier. His relatives said that Israeli soldiers spotted al-Najjar and opened fire, killing him with a bullet to the head.
Relative Jawdat al-Najjar said, “His children will have to work to repay this debt in the future.” “No one helps in these difficult days.”
The Israeli military told the AP it could not comment on the shooting without specific coordinates of where it occurred, according to relatives.
“IDF forces work to prevent illegal infiltration and maintain the security of the barrier and the safety of residents,” it said in a statement. “The forces conduct active ambushes at the barrier, arrest infiltrators and infiltrator smugglers and take both overt and covert actions to protect the barrier area.”
Labor rights experts say incursions occur daily, often involving dozens of Palestinians at a time.
Due to the restrictions, livelihoods have been destroyed. Many Palestinians found their livelihoods lost due to the sanctions. Some sold property. Along the streets of the West Bank, children sell tissues, bottled water and air fresheners. Some men have tried their hand at selling sandwiches at makeshift street stalls.
It’s not just jobs being cut in Israel. The army has also tightened its grip in the West Bank, imposing a network of new military checkpoints, hindering commerce and labor movement.
Vehicles could wait for hours as soldiers inspected everyone, unlike before the war, when many people were shown the way. Other roads are completely closed. In one case, the army closed a road connecting 12 villages to a southern city durasaid local activist Badawi Javed. Many employees could not reach their jobs and were fired, he said.
Violence has increased, with Israeli raids targeting armed groups increasing. The Palestinian Health Ministry says more than 700 West Bank Palestinians have been killed by Israeli shelling. Many were killed in armed clashes, some by throwing stones at other soldiers. But some appear to pose no apparent threat.
In Israel, Palestinians can earn double or triple the wages of those in the West Bank. Standing in their way is Israel’s barrier, which is about 700 kilometers (400 miles) long and 7-metre (23-feet) high.
Construction of the barrier began in 2002 after Palestinians from the area carried out several suicide bombings and other attacks that killed Israeli civilians at the height of the Second Intifada.
Late Tuesday night, two Palestinians opened fire on a boulevard in the West Bank city of Hebron Jaffa Israeli police said at least seven people were killed in a neighborhood in Tel Aviv. It is unclear how they entered Israel.
Many people climb the barrier with the help of ladders and ropes. Others hide in trucks passing through checkpoints. Some slip through holes in the fencing, workers and experts said.
Ayyad once worked for an Israeli construction company that paid 7,000 shekels ($1,850) monthly. Cut off from work since the war began, he looked for work in his home city of Jenin in the northern West Bank.
Ayyad said he tried grocery stores and restaurants, but no one was hiring.
To make ends meet, he borrowed money from friends, leaving him with a debt of about $1,600. They cut off water and electricity. By spring, he had no one left to borrow money from and a monthly rent bill of $500 to pay.
So he decided to risk it.
As he climbed the wall, the ladder slipped. Ayyad fell to the ground on the West Bank side, breaking his leg. He limped home without any money.
Smuggling gangs are run by Palestinian smugglers or middlemen associated with the gangs who arrange crossings on both sides of the barrier. They also provide ladders and ropes as well as vehicles to the Israeli side to move the workers away from the patrol barrier.
They charge 300 to 1,000 shekels ($79 to $260), said Arafat Amro, a Palestinian labor rights expert.
Palestinian workers and Amro said that once they find work, it is not difficult to find work due to labor shortages throughout Israel, mostly in construction and agriculture.
To avoid Israeli authorities, Palestinian workers are “sleeping in fields, they sleep in fields, they sleep under trees, on construction sites,” Amro said.
Rauf AdraA worker from Yatta said he found two weeks’ work at a construction site in the southern Israeli city of Dimona, paying 350 shekels ($65) a day. After climbing the barrier and reaching the site, they were told that they were prohibited from going out after their shift so as to remain undetected.
The next day, Israeli police stormed the site and arrested Adra and several other Palestinians. The Israeli site manager was nowhere to be seen.
“He ran away,” Adra said.
Adra was sentenced to 40 days in prison and fined 1,500 shekels ($390). Once released, he was deported back to the West Bank and banned from entering Israel for three years.
Desperate for work, this Palestinian will do it again. Unable to walk after a fall in May, Ayyad said he had to sell the gold his family had given his wife as a wedding gift and then his car.
“I know people who sold their furniture,” he said.
Four months later, his broken leg is almost completely healed.
Asked if he would try again, he replied, “If the situation remains the same I would consider it.”
