The fatalities mark the first Palestinians killed in this round of fighting by an Iranian missile.

By World Israel News Staff

Four people were killed overnight Wednesday when Iranian missile fire targeted Israel, including a foreign agricultural worker and three Arab women in a Palestinian Authority-administered town.

One of the victims was identified by Thailand’s Foreign Ministry as a Thai national working in Moshav Adanim, in central Israel.

Magen David Adom medic Idan Shina said in a media statement that “metal shrapnel was scattered across the scene,” where the victim was found deceased with “severe shrapnel injuries.”

Three additional victims were Palestinian women from Beit Awwa, southwest of Hebron. They were inside a makeshift hair salon located in a temporary outbuilding near a home when the strike occurred.

The Palestinian Authority identified them as Amal Masalmeh, Shahra Masalmeh, and Mais Ghazi Masalmeh, all members of the same family.

Footage from the scene showed the structure’s roof destroyed by the impact. It appeared that a cluster munition had struck the building.

The fatalities mark the first Palestinians killed in this round of fighting by an Iranian missile.

At least eight other people were wounded in the strike.

Iran launched at least six salvos of missiles at Israel beginning Wednesday evening and continuing through Thursday morning. The cluster munitions used by Iran created impacts across a wide swath of areas, causing property damage but no additional deaths.

In Tel Aviv, an 80-year-old man was treated for smoke inhalation after shrapnel struck his apartment building. A home in the Arab municipality of Jaljulia was also seriously damaged during the barrage, though no casualties were reported there.

The latest fatalities follow another deadly strike overnight Tuesday, when Ilana and Yaron Moshe were killed in the Tel Aviv suburb of Ramat Gan.

The couple, both in their 70s, were found outside their bomb shelter, suggesting they had failed to reach safety in time.

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One of the Nepalese foreign students of Alumim, Bipin Joshi, 23, is among the hostages still being held by Hamas and other terrorists in Gaza.

By Canaan Lindor, JNS 

Local media have often referred to the events that transpired here on Oct. 7, 2023, as a “miracle.”

In Alumim, a handful of defenders kept dozens of armed terrorists from reaching their small community’s residential heart, where dozens of children and women were hiding. None of the members of this religious kibbutz perished and it escaped the destruction visited on the neighboring communities of Be’eri, Kfar Aza and Nahal Oz.

Yet a massacre did occur in Alumim.

On the edges of the kibbutz, the terrorists from Gaza murdered 22 out of 24 Thai and Nepalese student workers, whose tragic fates have often been eclipsed.

Last month, an effort was made to commemorate the victims of Alumim, where more foreigners were murdered than anywhere else on Oct. 7.

Dozens of employees of the New Jersey-based financial services firm Cross River Bank visited the kibbutz on Feb. 13, where they and kibbutz members lit candles in memory of the 10 Nepalese and 12 Thai victims of the attack.

Cross River Bank’s CEO Gilles Gade also included Alumim in the itinerary of his delegation, which toured the sites of the Oct. 7 attack in Israel’s south, in recognition of one his employees, Pravesh Jiral, who was born in Nepal before immigrating to the United States.

Jiral lit memorial candles for the victims and shared with his colleagues his feelings and some context on the victims’ life stories.

“Their dreams were cut short in a moment of terror. But today, as we light these candles, we ensure that their light does not go out. Their memory will endure in the hearts of their families, in the spirit of our two nations, and in the commitment we share to peace and resilience,” he said.

The victims of Alumim are often described as foreign workers, but they and other foreign victims could be more accurately called foreign students, said Miriam Marcus, one of the members of Kibbutz Alumim.

A delegation of employees from Cross River Bank visit Kibbutz Alumim, Israel on Feb. 13, 2025. Photo by Canaan Lidor.

“They’re in a program that’s run internationally through universities in Thailand or Nepal, they get credits for their studies here,” she told the Cross River Bank delegation. And while the students “get decent wages, they’re here to get trained in farming and agriculture and then they learn to help make their country better,” she said.

One of the Nepalese foreign students of Alumim, Bipin Joshi, 23, is among the hostages still being held by Hamas and other terrorists in Gaza.

Security camera footage in Alumim provides a detailed record of the terrorists’ attack on the kibbutz.

The terrorists who attacked Alumim crossed the border on motorcycles and encountered some difficulties entering the kibbutz, partly thanks to the rapid response of the defenders.

On the main road outside the kibbutz, a Hamas pickup truck rigged up to a large propane tank was rammed off the road by Israeli troops. It may have been headed into Alumim as an improvised bomb.

Even without it, the terrorists caused immense damage. They burned barns, killed cows and destroyed equipment before arriving at the living quarters of the foreigners on the kibbutz’s edge.

A teenager waves a banner of U.S. President Donald Trump in Kibbutz Alumim, Israel on Feb. 13, 2025. Photo by Canaan Lidor.

There, the terrorists rounded up 22 out of 24 foreigners and gunned them down in a building that they then torched. The two survivors hid from the attackers.

Remarkably, both survivors, Jakkrit Noiphoothorn of Thailand and Birendra Chaudhary of Nepal, returned to Alumim after being airlifted to their home countries. They have a five-year visa and are determined to complete their training program.

Marcus recalled the panicked calls of the Thai students on Oct. 7 to her husband, Stevie, who passed away two months after the attack due to a cardiac arrest. The Israeli Defense Ministry has recognized his death as a result of the Oct. 7 trauma and exhaustion.

Stevie Marcus in Alumum in November 2023. Photo by Canaan Lidor.

“They were calling him, saying ‘Mr. Stevie, what do we do, what do we do?’ but we didn’t know what was going on,” Esther Marcus recalled. She added that it was “incredibly moving that they want to be a part of rehabilitating Alumim, that they feel good here, and it shows the depth of the bonds that are created here.”

Alumim and its regional council held several ceremonies in memory of the foreign victims, that were attended by Thai and Nepalese diplomats and survivors of the onslaught.

The shed and living quarters that the terrorists torched were torn down, but the kibbutz kept one charred wall—the one facing Gaza, whose bombed-out buildings are visible from Alumim. Nepalese and Thai flags hang on that wall, commemorating the tragedy.

In the days immediately after the attack, the structure bore harrowing witness to the terrorists’ brutality. The walls were splattered with blood, including behind a stack of rice sacks the victims had tried to pile up, possibly as a defense from the hand grenades that the terrorists lobbed into structures.

Alumim was among the first evacuated communities to return after the massacre. Undeterred by what had happened there, new foreign students from Nepal and Thailand have moved into Alumim and, together with Chaudhary and Noiphoothorn, are helping to rehabilitate the place.

The newcomers tend to the small vegetable patch and herb garden that their murdered compatriots had planted around their living quarters.

Cross River Bank CEO Gade, a longtime volunteer with Israel’s Magen David Adom emergency service, has firsthand knowledge of the efforts to rehabilitate the ravaged Tekuma Region.

In the first six months of the Oct. 7 war, his New Jersey-based firm, which has 170 employees based in Israel, helped procure and ship medical equipment for hospitals, MDA and beyond. The company has also sent almost 100 of its U.S.-based employees to Israel on missions.

“We believe that to combat apathy and ignorance, we want every Cross River employee to be exposed to the atrocities of Oct. 7, and bear witness to Hamas’s evil. We stand alongside our Israeli colleagues, offering support, compassion and strength. These missions are a testament to our unwavering commitment to Israel’s recovery, as we witness firsthand its unbreakable resilience, in spite of the world’s indifference,” Gade told JNS.

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The Palestinians attempted to use the workers’ passports to cross into Israel, but Israeli soldiers at a checkpoint, suspicious of fraud, stopped them.

By Vered Weiss, World Israel News

Ten Indian workers, kidnapped by Palestinians and held for a month in a village outside Jerusalem, were rescued by Israeli authorities, Israel’s Population and Immigration Authority (PIIA) announced on Wednesday.

The workers were lured to the village of al-Za’ayem with promises of construction jobs, only to be confined and robbed of their passports.

The Palestinians attempted to use the workers’ passports to cross into Israel, but Israeli soldiers at a checkpoint, suspicious of fraud, stopped them.

The workers were rescued overnight in a joint operation involving the Population and Immigration Authority, the IDF, and the Justice Ministry.

The workers were then moved to a secure location, while their employment status is still being determined.

Around 16,000 Indian workers have arrived over the past year, amid plans to recruit thousands more. While this effort has helped alleviate the labor shortage, it still doesn’t fully replace the 80,000 Palestinians from Judea and Samaria who previously worked in the sector. This has led to slower construction and the risk of a housing shortage.

Currently, around 30,000 foreign workers are employed, a significant decrease from pre-war levels. By late 2024, construction activity was approximately 25% below pre-conflict levels.

Despite the growing number of Indian workers, they still do not meet the demand. Although there is no immediate housing shortage, delays in the delivery of new housing could arise. With Israel’s population growing at a rate of 2% annually, such delays may eventually cause shortages.

Proposals to allow PA workers back into Jewish communities were met with widespread opposition. A survey conducted last year in Eli, a town of about 4,500 people in the Binyamin region of southern Samaria, revealed that 82% of residents opposed the idea, even with additional security measures in place.

Two polls conducted last year found that around two-thirds of Palestinians in Judea and Samaria supported the October 7 attacks, during which approximately 6,000 Hamas-led terrorists breached the Gaza border, killed around 1,200 people, injured thousands more, and took over 250 hostages.

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Seventy percent of the quota is specifically set aside for agricultural laborers.

By Pesach Benson, TPS

Seeking to address a labor shortage, Israeli officials approved a quota of 92,000 foreign workers to fill jobs in agriculture, industry, hotels and restaurants, the Prime Minister’s Office announced on Tuesday.

This marks the first time Israel has authorized foreign workers for the restaurant industry.

Seventy percent of the quota is specifically set aside for agricultural laborers. Israeli agriculture is facing staggering losses in production and manpower.

Before October 7, Israel had 29,900 foreigners, mostly Thais, working in farms, orchards, greenhouses and packing plants.

Israeli workers who might have filled the gaps have been called up for military reserve duty while Palestinian laborers are currently banned as security risks.

Many growing areas are within two kilometers of the Lebanese border where farmers have not been able to freely access fields and orchards.

“Despite the challenges of the war, the packing house works around the clock, with the aim of providing fresh Israeli produce continuously, while dealing with the directives of the Home Front Command,” said Asaf Keret, CEO of Beresheet, a fruit-packing business jointly run by several kibbutzim in the Upper Galilee and Golan Heights.

Keret was addressing a delegation of fruit growers and agricultural officials touring Beresheet’s orchards.

He called on the government to boost agriculture with further measures, such as grants for planting, raising lang quotas, and other incentives.

“The fruit growers are at the height of the picking season and are faced with picking under the fire of Hezbollah, and we are prepared to market the produce of the farmers of the Galilee and the Golan to the marketing chains and wholesale companies.

Thanks to our dedicated farmers and workers, I am sure that we will be able to supply the produce to the residents of the State of Israel,” Keret said.

The remaining foreign workers will fill gaps in industry, and hotels, with 2,000 to work for the first time in restaurants.

Since October 7, Hezbollah rocket barrages and drone attacks have killed 10 civilians and 15 soldiers.

Leaders of the Iran-backed terror group have said they will continue the attacks to prevent thousands of residents of northern Israel from returning to their homes.

Israeli officials have been calling for Hezbollah to be disarmed and removed from Southern Lebanon in accordance with UN Security Council resolution 1701, which ended the 2006 Second Lebanon War.

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Israeli ministers are concerned with the security problem posed by re-issuing work permits to Palestinians. 

By Vered Weiss, World Israel News

US Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen urged the Israeli government to reinstate work permits for Palestinians and to release tax revenues to the Palestinian Authority.

Yellen sent a letter to Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu with “a number of steps that the US believes must be taken” which “are vital for the economic well-being of Palestinians and Israelis alike.”

The letter was addressed to Netanyahu and not her counterpart Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich, because it’s believed that the US government has blacklisted him, according to Axios.

In addition to a request to release the tax funds to the Palestinian Authority, a move Smotrich was not willing to make for fear the funds might reach Hamas, Yellen urged Israel to “reinstate work permits for Palestinians and reduce barriers to commerce” for Arabs who live in Judea and Samaria.

Since the Hamas invasion of Israel on October 7th, Palestinian workers have been barred from working within the pre-1967 border of Israel  and 150,00 Palestinians who live in Judea and Samaria are now unable to travel for work.

In addition, 30,000 workers from Thailand left since the beginning of the war which has created a shortage of agricultural workers.

To respond to the shortage, Israel has considered bringing in tens of thousands of workers from other countries to replace the Palestinian workforce.

Israeli ministers are concerned with the security problem posed by allowing Palestinians in to work, especially since the PA has not condemned the Hamas massacre on October 7th and recent terror attacks were committed by Palestinian workers.

A car-ramming and stabbing attack in Ra’anana which killed one and wounded 17 others was perpetrated by three Palestinian terrorists who were working illegally in pre-1967 Israel.

In December, Minister of Economy and Industry Nir Barkat encouraged other ministers to vote against allowing Palestinian workers to enter for jobs in pre-1967 areas of Israel.

He wrote on X, “The reality changed on 7/10 and unfortunately there are those who don’t realize it. The days that Israel will rely on the labor of Palestinian workers are over.”

“Whoever thinks that peace with the Palestinians can be bought with money has not learned lessons from the Black Sabbath [of Oct. 7]. We can’t give any gift to the Palestinians,” said the Likud Party minister.

“I applaud the economic cabinet for voting against bringing in Palestinian workers and now we must act to cut red tape and bring in tens of thousands of workers from other countries as soon as possible,” said Barkat.

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“Our goal is to bring another 20,000 foreign workers to Israel in the next six weeks,” says Housing Ministry official.

By World Israel News Staff

The Director General of the Housing Ministry said that his office plans to bring some 20,000 foreign laborers as a replacement for Gazans and Palestinian Authority Arabs, who will no longer be granted permission to work in Israel.

Speaking at a real estate conference on Tuesday, Yehuda Morgenstern acknowledged that the sudden loss of Palestinian workers had a serious impact on the construction industry in Israel.

But, Morgenstern said, finding an alternative to Palestinian laborers is critical for Israel’s long term security.

“If we want workers here and now, we need the Palestinians,” he said. “If we want workers for the [long-term], we can wait for foreigners from other places.”

Morgenstern said that his office was working to ensure that foreign laborers can come to Israel as quickly as possible.

“When I look from an optimistic and realistic point of view, our goal is to bring another 20,000 foreign workers to Israel in the next six weeks. We are working day and night to make it happen and I think we will meet this requirement.”

In January, Economy Minister Nir Barkat stressed that Israel should stop depending on Palestinian laborers and instead provide job opportunities to workers from countries who maintain friendly relations with Jerusalem.

The government “should not bring in Palestinian workers to work in Israel. We are not the Palestinians’ employment organizers,” Barkat said during a speech in the Knesset.

“I believe that we need to bring workers from peaceful countries – from India, from Sri Lanka, from Europe, from Africa,” he continued.

Barkat emphasized that laborers should come “from countries with whom we have peaceful relations.” He said assurances that workers would “return to their countries” of origin is also “very important.”

He said that a return to the pre-October 7th system, in which laborers from both PA-controlled areas in Judea and Samaria and the Gaza Strip, is unfathomable.

Referencing the PA’s “pay-for-slay” initiative, which sees the murderers of Israelis receive monthly stipends, Barkat said that “a Palestinian who murders a Jew receives a million dollars while he sits in prison.”

With that in mind, “Israelis should not have to fear the Palestinian who wanders the streets and who was taught from a young age that he should murder Jews and that if he does murder a Jew he will receive a million dollars. This is unthinkable.”

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Thousands of foreign nationals, from Thailand to Hungary, Poland to Mexico, are among those scrambling to get out of the country, with almost no commercial flights available.

By Batya Jerenberg, World Israel News

Foreign governments have begun evacuating their citizens from Israel who fear for their safety as a result of the war with Hamas that began Saturday.

Brazil, Bulgaria, Hungary, Poland and Romania are among the European countries sending planes to repatriate hundreds at a time.

Hungary sent two planes to rescue 215 people already on Sunday night, its foreign minister said. The same day, Poland announced that it would send aircraft from its military.

“We are sending air force transport planes to carry out the evacuation of Poles currently staying in Israel,” Polish President Andrzej Duda wrote on X (formerly Twitter). “Soldiers from our special forces will ensure loading protection and safety on board.”

Canada and Australia have also announced they are evacuating their citizens, with Ottawa saying it has dispatched military aircraft to evacuate hundreds of citizens.

Many commercial airlines stopped flying to Israel as soon as Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu announced that his country was now at war with Hamas, rather than just retaliating in a limited military operation to the terrorists’ invasion of Israel’s south.

Other governments are chartering flights with private airlines.

Bulgaria sent a state-owned carrier to get 90 out of the country, while Romania flew out 245 citizens in total on four flights, two by its international carrier and two with private airlines.

A charter flight from Ben Gurion Airport landed Sunday night in Albania with 40 citizens from Albania, Kosovo and North Macedonia. More such runs are expected, with the Albanian foreign ministry announcing that “In the coming days, there will be more special flights to Tel Aviv, while we are also coordinating with the sister ministries of the countries of the region to come to the aid of all citizens who seek to return to their countries.”

Mexico, Cambodia and Thailand are among other countries seeking to answer the requests of their citizens who want to go home. Bangkok said a thousand nationals have asked for help in leaving, and that its Royal Air Force is on standby to do so.

Mexican President Andres Obrador said Monday that out of its 5,000 citizens currently in the Jewish state, 300 requested to leave and his government sent military aircraft to get them.

There was an influx of thousands of Christian tourists during the Sukkot holiday that immediately preceded the war, as the International Christian Embassy in Jerusalem held its annual Feast of the Tabernacles march of solidarity with the Jewish state. There are also hundreds of thousands of foreign workers in Israel, with Asian nationals especially working in the fields throughout the country, including the agricultural communities in the Gaza envelope.

More than 1,200 Israelis have been killed so far, the majority on the first day of the war, when Hamas terrorists blew up parts of the border fence and stormed through, wantonly shooting hundreds in villages and an outdoors rave in the Gaza envelope.

It is as yet unknown how many foreigners are among the dead, but they include citizens of Australia, Argentina, the U.S., Cambodia, Canada, France, Nepal, Thailand, Russia, the UK and Ukraine.

The U.S. has so far confirmed the deaths of 14 citizens, with most if not all holding dual Israeli-American nationality. The BBC reported that “more than ten” Britons are feared dead or missing, with two deaths confirmed. Argentina has verified four citizens’ deaths, and Thailand announced that 12 of its nationals were murdered.

There are also reportedly foreign nationals among the 150-200 men, women and children that the terrorists forced into Gaza as hostages after raiding the settlements. Thailand has confirmed that 11 of its citizens were taken.

Hundreds of people, including non-Israelis, are also still among the missing.

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By TPS

Israeli Foreign Minister Eli Cohen signed an agreement with his Indian counterpart in New Delhi on Tuesday to bring 42,000 Indian workers to Israel.

Cohen’s planned three-day diplomatic visit was cut short due to the escalating security situation following the killing by the Israeli military of three top Palestinian Islamic Jihad terrorists in the Gaza Strip. Cohen is on his first official visit to India, where he was expected to engage in bilateral talks on strengthening relations between the two countries.

Instead, he will return to Israel immediately after meeting with Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi.

The 42,000 workers coming to Israel will be employed in the areas of construction and nursing.

Cohen’s discussions focused on adding direct flights between the countries, continuing cooperation in agriculture and water management, and expanding cooperation in the fields of artificial intelligence and cyber defense.

The two countries are celebrating 30 years of diplomatic ties.

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High tech permit project marks first time Palestinians can seek Israeli white collar jobs.

By World Israel News Staff

As competition over high tech workers in Israel grows tougher, several lawmakers have floated ideas about wooing highly educated and technically experienced Eastern Europeans and Indians to the Jewish State in order to fill the gap.

But on Sunday, the Israeli government announced that it found a solution for the high tech labor crisis much closer to home.

The government will issue 500 work permits for Palestinian Authority residents, allowing high tech companies based in Israel to employ them as part of a pilot project that’s expected to last for three years.

“This will open the gates not only to low-wage workers, but to white-collar employees in a leading industry,” Regional Cooperation Minister Issawi Frej of the Meretz party said in a statement.

Currently, the Defense Ministry reports that some 130,000 Palestinians hold permits which allow them to work inside Israel and Jewish communities in Judea and Samaria.

The vast majority toil as construction workers and other manual laborers, so the high tech permit project marks the first time that Palestinian Authority residents can seek employment in a white collar setting.

According to a Israel Innovation Authority and Start-Up Nation Central report, some 60 percent of Israeli high tech companies and start-ups said they are having difficulty recruiting employees and filling positions.

Palestinian entrepreneur Mahmoud Khweis told the Times of Israel that Palestinian graduates would be eager to work for Israeli salaries, which are about twice as much as what they could expect to be paid locally.

He said that senior developers based in Tel Aviv typically earn between 30,000 to 45,000 shekels ($9,650 to $14,470) monthly, while salaries for Ramallah-based tech workers doing the same job would probably tap at around $14,000 ($4,500).

“The salaries that those Palestinian programmers get are quite low, and the working conditions could be better, to put it politely,” Khewis said.

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“The government forces our lives into [a fight for] survival, and that becomes the primary focus and not dealing with the disability,” said a disabled mother of three.

By Lauren Marcus, World Israel News

The swearing-in of deaf MK Shirley Pinto to the Knesset was widely viewed as a symbolic victory for Israeli citizens living with disabilities.

But Tiferet Peterseil is less than enthused about Pinto’s chances of bringing about real change.

A single mother of three daughters, she became physically disabled in midlife after a car accident. She told World Israel News that Israel’s bureaucracy and meager monthly stipends for the disabled had caused her to lose hope about potential reforms to the disability system.

“I’m just really scared to have expectations,” she said. “At this point, it’s a farce. They make promises to settle everyone down, but even if they do fulfill those promises, it’s just a drop in the bucket.”

Peterseil cited the fact that the monthly allowance for disabled Israelis stands at 3,321 shekels (roughly $1,000), which is less than the monthly minimum wage of 5,300 shekels ($1,640), as evidence of a broken system.

Disabled Israelis like Peterseil who hire carers are required to pay them minimum wage.

But considering other mandated requirements for employers of at-home caregivers, including food allowances, private medical insurance, overtime and holiday pay, and vacation days, she told WIN that it’s impossible to pay less than 7,000 shekels a month.

With the need to pay so much out of pocket, a carer is out of reach for thousands of disabled Israelis, many of whom are barely able to make ends meet with their disability stipend.

A struggle for survival

The story of Itzik Saidian, an IDF veteran suffering from PTSD who self-immolated in front of a government office after a years-long saga to obtain rights as a disabled person, hit close to home for Israelis living with disabilities.

Peterseil said that many in the disabled community could relate to Saidian’s despair.

“I can’t tell you how many of us think of doing those things, and how many of us anchor ourselves to something to not do something so extreme,” she said.

“The government forces our lives into [a fight for] survival, and that becomes the primary focus and not dealing with the disability.

“You can come to terms with disability. To come to terms with ‘you don’t matter or count in society’ is something else entirely.”

Peterseil said that the government must start “thinking in a practical way” about how to help disabled Israelis obtain the support they need.

The government should provide a subsidy for carers or allow them to be paid less than minimum wage. If that’s not an option, she said, then disability allowances must be increased so that Israelis can afford it.

By keeping disabled Israelis locked in poverty without the help that they need, Peterseil said, the government is “condemning me and my family to the outskirts of society and [the reality of] living hand-to-mouth.”

A widespread issue

Hanan Tal, CEO of the NGO Disabled, Not Half a Person, told World Israel News that Peterseil’s story isn’t uncommon. Israelis often face serious obstacles when they request in-home care, he said.

“There are single mothers, living with disabilities, who aren’t able to get someone to help them at home. That’s something that we are trying to fix, within the law,” he said.

He added that combat veterans with PTSD are not entitled to an at-home carer, even if they need one, because the state does not recognize mental illness in the same way that it does physical disability.

And even when disabled Israelis are issued a special visa that allows them to recruit a foreign carer, the cost of help is often prohibitive.

“Foreign workers are getting minimum wage, and their Israeli employers are getting [a state allowance] below the poverty line,” said Tal.

He said that financial pressures place an undue burden on families that are left to fend for themselves when government bureaucracy proves too challenging.

The stresses of managing disability “don’t just affect the people with disabilities themselves,” Tal said. “They affect the families…we’re seeing 90% divorce rates in families with disabled kids.”

Broken promises

The 2018 disability allowances law, which raised the monthly stipend for disabled Israelis by some 500 shekels a month, was a major step in the right direction.

But due to political gridlock beginning in 2019 and the lack of a state budget for two years, the payments were only partially paid out.

And as the new government prepares to pass the first state budget in three years, advocates of the 2018 law discovered that the government does not intend to distribute the rest of the funds as originally promised.

“We’re now finding out that the treasury is trying to deduct 500 million shekels from the [disability allowances budget], with excuses that the population has grown, all kinds of excuses to show why they don’t have the money to pay,” Tal said.

Although the 2018 law explicitly stipulated that the payments must come from the general state budget, Tal said the Finance Ministry proposed that the payments be made “at the expense of other disabled people.”

The Ministry is suggesting slashing income tax relief for disabled Israelis, including those wounded during their IDF service and in terror attacks, as a way to pay out the additional allowances, Tal said.

In other words, the funding for the increased disability allowances would come from ending tax discounts for other disabled Israelis.

An uphill battle

Tal said that at the peak of the Second Intifada in 2003, the Israeli government froze disability payments in order to ease the economic crisis caused by frequent terror attacks.

Although the payments were restored as the Intifada died down, the value of the allowances eroded over the years.

“In 2003, [disabled Israelis] had greater purchasing power [from their allowances.] The actual, real world value of the allowances has shrunk,” he said.

Tal said that the government has consistently dragged its feet when it comes to delivering on promises for disabled Israelis.

“People with disabilities are not on the priority list for MKs and other decision makers,” he said.

But despite facing an uphill battle, Tal said that his organization was confident they could force the law to be implemented and the extra payments to be distributed, even if it means taking their case to the Supreme Court.

“We won’t give up on even one shekel,” he said.

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There are 130,000 illegal immigrants in Israel and hundreds of thousands more want to come due to Israel’s strong economy, according to an immigration official.

By Batya Jerenberg, World Israel News

The head of the Population and Immigration Authority (PIBA) said the good conditions and fair pay that migrant workers receive in Israel make the country a very popular destination.

At a conference Sunday on various issues regarding legal and illegal migrant workers, Professor Shlomo Mor Yosef, the PIBA director, said that foreign workers from all over the world “are knocking on our door to come work in Israel.”

They want to come because of “the high minimum wage, and good work conditions that include strict work hours, payment for overtime, health insurance, etc.,” Mor Yosef said.

He noted that at any given moment there are about half a million foreign workers in the country, 370,000 of whom are here legally. For example, there are 8,000 Chinese working in construction, while as of 2016, over 19,000 have come from Thailand to work in agriculture.

These workers have come within the framework of bilateral agreements made with the governments of their countries, which have also reduced the phenomenon of foreign workers paying exorbitant sums of money to shady middlemen to get them to Israel and find them employment, where many had labored under slave-like conditions.

There is also a small number of workers in Israel from Bulgaria, Moldova, Romania and Sri Lanka.

As for day workers, Mor Yosef said there are 85,000 Palestinians with permission to work in Israel. There are even 1,000-1,500 Jordanians who cross the border every morning to work in the hotel industry before returning home at night.

Of the illegal workers, most of them either had valid work authorizations that ran out or they had come disguised as tourists and began working illegally, according to Mor Yosef.

There are also thousands of Ukrainians and Georgians who entered Israel as tourists but immediately came to PIBA to ask for political asylum, he added. It takes a long time for the system to check each case, and in the meantime they remain in the country.

Mor Yosef spoke at the  annual conference of the Center for International Migration and Integration (CIMI). Founded by the Joint Distribution Committee (JDC)-Israel in 1998, CIMI is an independent, non-profit organization dedicated to assisting Israel in meeting its migration challenges while also obeying international law on the subject.

CIMI recently established a center in Beersheba to provide asylum seekers with counseling and support. It also has a program to assist migrants in returning to their home countries as well as a hotline for migrant workers to learn about their rights.

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