Tough conditions and no jobs in West Bank create dilemma for Palestinians

“Death by corona or starvation is all death.” With these few words Yahya Khadr summed up his condition and that of thousands of Palestinians who have chosen to stay and work in Israel during the coronavirus outbreak.

According to an agreement between the Palestinian Authority (PA) and Israel, Khadr and others like him returned to work at the beginning of the week, nearly two months after the authority called on them to return to their West Bank homes to avoid infection.

But about 50,000 Palestinians stayed on despite the pandemic due to difficult living conditions as well as the lack of work in the West Bank, agreeing to return to their jobs and to avoid returning to their families until after the end of Ramadan later this month.

“The decision is not easy and (we) work in harsh conditions amid daily fear of infection but, in return, there is no alternative to work and risk to support our families,” he told Arab News. Khadr is from the village of Tarqumiya, Hebron, and he has a job in a building workshop. His workplace turns into a makeshift home at night, one he shares with 10 colleagues. “The Israeli contractor provided us with some bedding and blankets in abandoned rooms in the workshop without a kitchen or bathrooms ... it is a living drenched in humiliation.”

Official figures indicate that the number of Palestinian workers in Israel and the settlements scattered in the West Bank is around 135,000, 90 percent of whom work in construction, while the rest work in agricultural and other sectors.

Workers’ wages are one of the most important sources of income for the West Bank’s economy. According to Palestinian estimates, a worker in Israel receives a much higher daily wage than one inside the Palestinian territories, ranging between $100 and $150. On May 6 Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas renewed the state of emergency for a month, and for the third time, as part of measures to confront the coronavirus outbreak.

But the PA’s strict measures under the state of emergency were not enough to prevent thousands of Palestininans who do not have official permits from drifting back to their jobs through detours and gaps in the wall along the West Bank. While some workers responded to the call of Palestinian Prime Minister Muhammad Shtayyah, who addressed them before the start of Ramadan, to return to the West Bank, thousands decided to stay on inside Israel so that they would not be subjected to 14 days of quarantine.

On May 6 President Abbas renewed the emergency for a month as part of measures to confront the pandemic.