\u201cMy brother risked his life because he needed to provide for his family at a time when the economic situation was difficult,\u201d Qusai said.<\/p>\n
The decision to cross the wall would prove deadly for Qaddous.<\/p>\n
On April 26, 2024, Qaddous drove to the barrier. Capped with barbed wire, the wall is over 8 meters tall and runs more than 200 kilometers. Qaddous hoped to jump over it and catch a ride from East Jerusalem to Taybeh. He chose a section of the barrier that separates the Palestinian side of the town of Al-Ram from the Israeli section.<\/p>\n
Qaddous paid some local Palestinian men 600 shekels, or $186. The men provided the ladder for getting up the wall, a rope for getting down the other side, and transport to the job site, The men served as lookouts throughout the crossing.<\/p>\n
Qaddous climbed the ladder, then mayhem broke out. The lookouts spotted an Israeli police jeep. Qaddous fell to the ground.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe fall did not kill him immediately,\u201d Qusai said. \u201cIsraeli police spotted him as he lay on the ground with a serious head injury and prevented an ambulance from reaching him. He bled out. When they were sure he was dead, they allowed paramedics to take his body.\u201d<\/p>\n
Shooting Workers<\/p>\n
Forty-four Palestinian workers have died trying to cross the wall since October 2023, when Israeli authorities revoked almost all permits, according to the Palestinian Workers\u2019 Union. The deaths, along with serious injuries inflicted by authorities, happened while workers were being chased by Israeli police, beaten, shot at, or fell after jumping off the separation barrier.<\/p>\n
The injuries have been growing more serious. Palestinians are increasingly being shot by Israel\u2019s border police, especially in the legs, following an order from far-right Israeli Minister of National Security Itamar Ben-Gvir, according to the Israeli news outlet Walla<\/a>. Since the start of 2025, at least 106 Palestinians have been shot in the legs by border police at the Israeli separation wall near Jerusalem \u2014 including one this week who was shot in the leg when Israeli forces opened fire, according to the Red Crescent.<\/p>\n Israel\u2019s occupation has shaped the West Bank\u2019s economy for nearly six decades, creating a structure in which Palestinians are largely prevented from building a self-sustaining economy and instead pushed into dependency on work in Israel itself or in its illegal settlements.<\/p>\n Before the Gaza genocide got underway in October 2023, almost 20 percent <\/a>all Palestinian laborers worked in Israel and or its illegal West Bank settlements \u2014 mostly in construction and agriculture. That number nosedived to 4 percent immediately after the Hamas-led attack on Israel set off an Israeli onslaught.<\/p>\n Before October 2023, around a quarter million Palestinians, with and without permits, used to commute daily from the Occupied Palestinian Territories, including 19,000 from Gaza, according to Shaher Saad, the secretary-general of the Palestinian Workers\u2019 Union.<\/p>\n Today, fewer than 15,000 Palestinian laborers with permits travel to Israel for work with permits. The drastic reduction cut off a vital liquidity lifeline that provided them with wages 4 to 10 times higher<\/a> than what they would earn in the occupied territories, where unemployment is more than 50 percent nationally<\/a> \u2014 about 80 percent in Gaza and 35 percent in the West Bank.<\/p>\n Additionally, since October 2023, Israel has staunched the flow of tax revenue to the Palestinian Authority, the home-rule Palestinian government in the West Bank. Israel has withheld and delayed transfers of the revenues back to the Palestinians in contravention of the Oslo Accords, the diplomatic agreement that established the PA and set the stage for a two-state solution whose prospects have all but vanished.<\/p>\n With public salaries hit by the withheld tax revenue and cash running increasingly short, about 40,000 Palestinians with no permits continue to cross into Israel illegally, despite the increased risk of the Israeli crackdown, according to Saad.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/a><\/p>\n For years, Israel has regarded Palestinians \u2014 many of whom work in low-skilled positions \u2014 as a pool of cheap labor.<\/p>\n Bringing them into the Israeli labor market was presented as a way to boost Palestinian living standards, on the assumption that hardship breeds resistance. Economic gains and financial reliance on Israel, on the other hand, would deter Palestinians from challenging the status quo, helping maintain Israeli dominance.<\/p>\n A structure was created wherein any worker can easily be replaced by the thousands desperate for permits. <\/p>\n At the same time, however, Palestinian workers were far from equal in the workforce. With no guaranteed sick leave, no pension, delayed or denied benefits, and with work permits tied to a specific employer, a structure was created wherein any worker can easily be replaced by the thousands desperate for permits. Palestinian laborers were cheap and disposable. And their mistreatment has worsened since October 7, according to Mohammad Blidi, who heads the workers\u2019 union in Tulkarem, a Palestinian city near the separation wall in the northern West Bank.<\/p>\n \u201cAs an occupying power, Israel is legally obliged to provide work for Palestinians, and to respect international labor laws,\u201d Blidi said. \u201cWhat is happening in reality is far from it. On a daily basis, Palestinian workers are subject to humiliation and beatings.\u201d<\/p>\n Laborers From Gaza<\/p>\n On the day of the October 7 attacks, Israel detained thousands of Palestinian workers from Gaza who were in working on permits inside Israel. Although they had the necessary Israeli-issued permission, they were held for a month at least, many beaten and interrogated.<\/p>\n That the detained workers were legally in Israel, with permits and the attendant security vetting, according to Blidi, suggests they were detained mainly because they had come from Gaza.<\/p>\n The arrests were carried out \u201csecretly and illegally<\/a>,\u201d according to Gisha, an Israeli group that advocates for Palestinians\u2019 right of movement. There was no legal basis for moving the workers into detention centers, the group said, and they were effectively disappeared, with Israel refusing to disclose the workers\u2019 identities and whereabouts.<\/p>\n Many of the workers described<\/a> being mistreated in detention \u2014 left without food, water, medication, a mattress, or toilet access. They endured harsh violence and psychological abuse, reporting torture and degrading treatment. Israeli soldiers seized all cash and mobile phones<\/a> from the workers, and two died in Israeli custody.<\/p>\n We\u2019re independent of corporate interests \u2014 and powered by members. Join us. <\/p>\n Join Our Newsletter <\/p>\n Thank You For Joining! <\/p>\n \n Original reporting. Fearless journalism. Delivered to you. <\/p>\n Will you take the next step to support our independent journalism by becoming a member of The Intercept?\n <\/p>\n By signing up, I agree to receive emails from The Intercept and to the Privacy Policy<\/a> and Terms of Use<\/a>.<\/p>\n In one case, a 40-year-old Palestinian man from Gaza City who worked in the Israeli city of Ashkelon on the day of the attack had to flee to Hebron when news came out that laborers from Gaza were being targeted by Israeli police.<\/p>\n Since he could not go back to Gaza, he hunkered down with several other workers in the southern West Bank city awaiting his fate, the man, who requested anonymity for fear of his safety, said in an interview. Then he received word that his pregnant wife and four of his children \u2014 two boys and two girls \u2014 had been killed in an Israeli airstrike in Gaza City. Only one child survived, but the boy\u2019s leg was seriously injured and he lost an eye in the attack.<\/p>\n Just two days into mourning, the worker was awakened by a loud explosion in the pre-dawn hours. Israeli soldiers blew up the door to the house he was staying in and detained him, along with the others.<\/p>\n \u201cThey tied our hands behind our backs and blindfolded us before beating us,\u201d he recalled. \u201cThey took us to the Israeli settlement of Kiryat Arba and from there to another prison that they didn\u2019t disclose. For nine days, we endured tortuous interrogations. Every day, they asked different questions about Gaza. I told them I\u2019m just a worker.\u201d<\/p>\n He was once again transferred to another prison for a day \u2014 and in the dead of night, he and several other workers were dumped at the border with Gaza. They all entered the Strip by foot.<\/p>\n \u201cI was in the south and couldn\u2019t go back to Gaza City,\u201d he said. \u201cI couldn\u2019t bury my wife and children. I couldn\u2019t say goodbye to them.\u201d<\/p>\n It took 20 days for him to be reunited with his son. They moved into a tattered tent that flooded with the recent winter storms.<\/p>\n He said that, working in Israel, he had been able to save over $10,000.<\/p>\n \u201cIt\u2019s all gone now,\u201d the man said. \u201cI only have four shekels\u201d \u2014 about $1 \u2014 \u201cin my pocket. I used to be able to work and provide for my family. But now, there is no life.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"For many years, Arafat Qaddous worked construction jobs in Israel. He was one of around 130,000 Palestinians living…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":167912,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[30254,30251,85,46,30260,14451,43,30253,30257,30258,30259,30256,97705,30255],"class_list":{"0":"post-167911","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-israel","8":"tag-article-type-article-post","9":"tag-day-thursday","10":"tag-il","11":"tag-israel","12":"tag-language-english","13":"tag-medium","14":"tag-news","15":"tag-page-type-article","16":"tag-partner-factiva","17":"tag-partner-smart-news","18":"tag-partner-social-flow","19":"tag-subject-world","20":"tag-time-14-00","21":"tag-wc-1000-1999"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/167911","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=167911"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/167911\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/167912"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=167911"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=167911"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=167911"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}![\"DEIR](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/10\/GettyImages-1768403880-2.jpg\")
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