Foreign Workers Are Caught in the Chaos of the Israel-Hamas War

JERUSALEM – When Pranita Chhetri learned on Oct. 7 that Hamas terrorists from Gaza had infiltrated southern Israel that morning, murdering more than 1,000 Israelis and foreign nationals and kidnapping many others, she was horrified but not fearful for her own personal safety.

Chhetri, who moved from her home in India to Israel seven months ago, is a live-in caregiver in Kiryat Shmona, a northern Israeli town just a mile east of the Israel-Lebanon border but 130 miles away from the Gaza border.

That Saturday, as Chhetri watched news of the massacre unfold on TV, she thought she wouldn’t be affected. “But starting on Sunday,” she says, “here in Kiryat Shmona, I heard the booms and more booms” from cross-border clashes between Lebanon-based militants and Israeli forces.

Air raids sirens wailing, Chhetri rushed to the terrace where her patient, Esther, who is 88 and has dementia, was sitting with her walker. It took all of the caregiver’s strength to get her charge to the apartment’s bomb shelter.

Days later, when the Israeli government ordered the evacuation of Kiryat Shmona for safety reasons and relocated Esther to a hotel in Jerusalem, the caregiver accompanied her. They have been living there ever since.

The wellness hotel – which also serves as a full-time rehabilitation facility – is run by Yad Sarah, the largest nongovernmental social and health care service provider in Israel. It has proved a safe haven for displaced Israelis with mobility and other health problems. In the afternoons, caregivers from India, the Philippines, Sri Lanka, Ukraine and other countries bring their patients to the bright and welcoming lobby, where they and their patients socialize.

Chhetri is one of Israel’s approximately 110,000 registered migrant workers; tens of thousands of other foreign workers lack a permit, often having entered as tourists or overstayed their visas, according to workers’ rights organization Kav LaOved. An additional 20,000 to 30,000 asylum-seekers live mostly in and around Tel Aviv in central Israel.

Like Israeli citizens, migrant workers and asylum-seekers have been affected by the Israel-Hamas war in the south and armed hostilities in the north, where Israel has exchanged fire with Hamas fighters and the terrorist group Hezbollah. Palestinian workers holding coveted permits giving them access to jobs in Israel also have faced upheaval, with Israel reportedly detaining some after the initial Hamas attack and sending thousands back to Gaza.

When Hamas terrorists massacred 1,200 people and took more than 200 others hostage last month, they didn’t spare migrant workers. At least 39 workers from Thailand, 10 agricultural students from Nepal, six or seven construction workers from China, and six caregivers from Sri Lanka, the Philippines and Moldova were murdered, while other workers were kidnapped and taken to Gaza, according to Kav LaOved.

“Like everyone living in the farming communities, they faced gunmen shooting and missiles falling from the sky. They faced all the horror,” says Shira Abbo, a spokesperson for The Hotline for Refugees and Migrants, a nonprofit advocacy group based in Tel Aviv. With so many Israeli farmers killed or kidnapped, the workers didn’t know where to turn for help, she says.

Thai agricultural workers, who speak very little Hebrew or English, were particularly vulnerable to rockets and terrorists because their accommodations and the fields where they worked lacked bomb shelters, says Yahel Kurlander, an expert in the Israeli labor market at Tel-Hai College in northern Israel. Since the attack, many of the Thai workers directly impacted have been flown back to Thailand, while others have been assigned to farm farther away from the war zone.

When a consortium of nongovernmental organizations provided Thai workers with temporary refuge in central Israel, “some were highly traumatized, so we brought in psychologists and translators, food and clothing,” Kurlander says.

“I didn’t think I would make it out alive because the attack was very violent,” one injured Thai worker said after arriving in Bangkok. “Shots rained on us, like they wanted us dead.”

Abbo says caregivers also face unique dilemmas in wartime. “If you’re caring for a person who can’t walk or has dementia, how do you take them to a bomb shelter” with just a few seconds’ notice? she says. “We know of caregivers who saved the lives of their patients.”

Despite this, the vast majority of Israel’s approximately 60,000 foreign caregivers have remained in the country, although some decided to take vacation days immediately after the massacre, says Assia Ladizhinskaya, a spokesperson for Kav LaOved.

A big motivation for staying in Israel is wages, which are much higher than in the workers’ home countries. Another is debt. Migrants may have to pay thousands of dollars to their home government to obtain a visa and to employment agencies for the chance to work abroad. The debt typically isn’t canceled if workers return home prematurely.

“Israel is trying to combat this phenomenon with bilateral agreements with the workers’ countries of origin, but there’s more to be done,” Abbo says.

Eldose Umkudiyil, a male caregiver from India, says he was “very frightened” by the dozens of rockets Hamas launched at Ashkelon, a city near the Gaza border, on Oct. 7.

“I was in the kitchen making a salad when I heard the booms,” he says. “At first I thought they were firecrackers, but the entire building was shaking.”

Umkudiyil says he misses his parents and sister, “but I won’t be returning to India anytime soon. It cost me thousands of dollars to move here, and the money I earn supports my family back home.”

Asylum-seekers face other challenges. Since many are manual laborers, they have been hit hard by the closure of some hotels, restaurants and stores. Although poorer Israelis are experiencing this as well, asylum-seekers “don’t receive the same safety net benefits as citizens, but they still must pay rent. That only increases their anxiety,” Abbo notes.

While it may sound counterintuitive right now, Chhetri insists that Israel “is a safe country for foreign workers. Here women can go out at night and feel safe. The government cares about people. They moved us to Jerusalem.

“I have no plans to return home,” she says.