Indian workers replace Palestinians in Israel’s building sector

BEER YAAQOV (AFP) — Wearing a safety belt, helmet and work boots, Raju Nishad navigates the scaffolding, hammering blocks that will form part of a building in a new neighborhood in central Israel’s town of Beer Yaakov.

While he and other Indians working alongside him do not look out of place on the expansive construction site, they are relative newcomers to Israel’s building industry.

They are part of an Israeli government effort to fill a void left by tens of thousands of Palestinian construction workers barred from entering Israel since Hamas’ unprecedented 7 October 2023 attack.

If that attack had not happened, this site, with its slowly emerging high-rise towers, homes, roads and pavements, would have teemed with laborers speaking Arabic — unlike the Hindi, Hebrew and even Mandarin of today.

The Hamas attack triggered the deadliest war yet between Israel and militant group Hamas in the Gaza Strip.

It later spread to include other Iran-backed groups including Hezbollah in Lebanon and Houthi rebels in Yemen, and even direct confrontation with the Islamic republic itself.

None of this deterred Nishad, 35, from coming to Israel.

“There’s nothing to be afraid of here,” he said, despite several air raid warnings that have sent him running for the shelters.

“Once it (the siren) stops, we just resume our work,” he told Agence France-Presse.

High earnings in Israel, where some workers can make three times what they would back home, are the key to why people like Nishad flock here, thousands of kilometers (miles) away.

“I’m saving for the future, planning to make wise investments and do something meaningful for my family,” Nishad said.

He is just one of around 16,000 workers who have come from India over the past year — and Israel has plans to bring thousands more.