Palestinians once filled a third of Israel’s construction jobs. Now, a shortfall remains

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Guo Longfa arrived in Israel this February, ready to work. The 43-year-old from Wuhan, China, has spent years on construction sites far from home, including in southern China’s Hainan province.

But when a friend mentioned that he might be able to get a job tiling floors in Israel, he jumped at the chance. It meant moving nearly 7,400 kilometres, to a country where he did not speak the language, and where war rockets and missiles occasionally scorched the skies.

It also meant nearly quadrupling the wage he could earn at home, allowing him a chance to secure an income to provide for his three children – two of them boys who, when they marry one day, will expect to be gifted a house and car.

“In China, you have a lot of pressure when you have boys,” he said.

So Mr. Guo signed up, joining tens of thousands of foreign workers who have arrived in Israel over the past two years, a small army of replacement labour that Workers Hotline, an advocacy group, has called the “spare parts” of Israel’s economy.

But those spare parts have also emerged as unlikely winners from a war that has killed tens of thousands and hardened regional hatreds. Over the past two years, trades workers, caregivers and farm labourers have come to Israel from India, Sri Lanka, Thailand and China. Many took jobs once held by Palestinians, more than 100,000 of whom Israel’s government blocked from entry after the Hamas-led attacks on Oct. 7, 2023, that killed nearly 1,200 Israelis.

Before the war began, Israel counted 110,000 foreign workers. A government directive from May, 2024, set the aim of massively increasing that number to 330,000.

Seventeen months later, the country remains far from that target – its latest statistics show more than 195,000.

And a ceasefire has, for now, quieted the war.

For Palestinian workers who have now suffered years without steady work, it is a moment of new hope that they can soon emerge from the economic crossfire of the fighting. Israel has allowed some of them to return, but most are still barred from entry.

Employers, labourers and advocates have all said the time has come to restore work permits that have for many years made Palestinians a pillar of the Israeli economy.

For now, though, there is no sign of change from the Israeli government, whose current cabinet includes far-right ministers determined to wall the country off from Palestinians. “I strongly oppose the introduction of workers from the Palestinian Authority [area] to Israel,” Itamar Ben-Gvir, the influential Minister of National Security, said last year. “You don’t do business with an enemy. Period.”

Bringing back Palestinian workers “is a decision made by the political leadership,” Israel’s Population and Immigration Authority said in a statement.

Palestinians once provided a third of the country’s construction work force. Foreign workers have filled well under half of the gap left by their departure, and a yawning shortfall remains.

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The shortage is being keenly felt in the construction industry. The Israel Builders Association estimates that labour shortages have slowed work by 30 per cent to 40 per cent, at a time when demand is likely to increase. There is reason to expect a construction surge. Some homes in Israel were damaged during the war – although nothing like the nearly wholesale destruction seen in Gaza. But past experience has also shown that with a cessation in hostilities comes a new desire to build.

How that is resolved is a pressing question for Israel’s economy, but also for that of the West Bank, where tens of thousands of workers – many of them men – have spent the past two years earning little.

“It has been a means of collective punishment, used many times before. But this time, it is to an even greater extent,” said Carine Metz, programs co-ordinator at the Democracy and Workers’ Rights Center, the only specialized labour-rights organization in the West Bank.

A recent United Nations report found that GDP in the West Bank contracted by 17 per cent last year, as per capita income fell to 2018 levels. (Gaza, which also previously sent workers to Israel, has suffered far worse, with its economy shrinking to 13 per cent of its 2022 size.)

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Electrician Jamal Qandeel is among those whose personal circumstances have straitened. After two decades of working in Israeli communities, he has found barely any work at all in the past two years. He halted construction on a home he was building for himself and has been unable to repay a loan he took out to buy materials.

It has been “extremely difficult,” he said. “There is a lot of debt.”

Thousands of Palestinian workers are also still owed money from work they did before the war. Recouping it has proven difficult. Israeli restrictions on movement prevent many from attending court to demand what they are owed, said Castro Daoud, a lawyer who specializes in helping Palestinians.

The sums can be considerable. One of his clients is suing for $88,000 in unpaid wages, annual leave, overtime and severance. It’s not clear that worker, now in his mid-60s, will ever return to Israel, Mr. Daoud said.

Others, though, believe change will come soon if the ceasefire holds.

“Everyone is talking about how things will get better,” said Mohammad Hussain, a labourer whose permit was not renewed after war broke out. “Without the Palestinian workers, they cannot survive in Israel.”

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Besides, he asked, what does Israel gain with foreign workers? “Chinese workers send their money to China. Palestinian workers keep the money here,” he said.

Indeed, the fortunes for those from China are the inverse of those from Palestinian territories. Since the onset of war, the number of Chinese workers has grown by 60 per cent, to 26,416, according to Israel’s Population and Immigration Authority.

For Pan Guming, working in Israel has wrought a fundamental change for his family, allowing him to build up savings in the bank where there was little before. He calls it a lifestyle upgrade.

“I have made progress,” he said.

Mr. Pan came first for five years; during the war, Israel extended his stay by another two. His current visa expires at the end of this year, but he is not worried. If he can, he will stay until he retires.

“We are short of people here now, so they said the company needs people,” he said.

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For those from China, Israel has become a new home. On Shabbat, they circulate through Russian markets for goods such as pork they can’t buy elsewhere. Employers provide housing; the workers live several to a room and cook for themselves. Life contains little beyond work; 12-hour days, with breaks only for the Sabbath.

Mr. Guo, who lives in Tel Aviv, has visited the Dead Sea and Jerusalem, but otherwise has seen little outside of construction sites. He speaks only a few words in Hebrew.

Still, he intends to stay as long as Israel will have him. In China, “nine out of 10 ordinary people are dissatisfied because they can’t afford medical care, can’t buy houses, and can’t send their children to school,” he said.

Working in Israel, by contrast, has let him send home more money than he could have dreamed. Even currency has worked in his favour, with the shekel strengthening against the yuan.

“The higher the exchange rate, the better,” he said. “Because then we can take more money home.”