[News] Thousands of Gaza workers go ‘missing’ in Israel amid wartime mass arrests

[Anti-Imperialist News]

 Thousands of Gaza workers go ‘missing’ in Israel amid wartime mass arrests

*Palestinians whose permits to work in Israel were revoked are believed to
be held in detention camps, but Israel has so far refused to release
information about them, human rights groups say.*
[image: Israeli soldiers arrest a Palestinian man during a search operation
in Baita village in the occupied West Bank]
Human rights groups are concerned about further arrests amid continuing
raids in the occupied West Bank [File: Jaafar Ashtiyeh/AFP]
By Federica Marsi <https://www.aljazeera.com/author/marsif> and Ylenia
Gostoli <https://www.aljazeera.com/author/ylenia_gostoli_150621113040057>
Published On 28 Oct 2023
https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2023/10/28/thousands-of-gaza-workers-go-missing-in-israel-amid-wartime-mass-arrests
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Thousands of workers from Gaza, who were employed in Israel when the war
started, have gone missing since then amid a campaign of mass arrests
<https://www.aljazeera.com/program/newsfeed/2023/10/17/mass-arrests-of-palestinians-in-occupied-west-bank>
.

Human rights groups and trade unions believe some of the workers have been
illegally detained in military facilities in the occupied West Bank,
following the revocation of their permits to work in Israel. Authorities in
Israel have so far refused to release the names of those they are holding.

When the Palestinian armed group, Hamas, launched an unprecedented assault
on the south of Israel on October 7, about 18,500 residents of Gaza held
permits to work outside the besieged strip. The exact number of workers
present in Israel as hostilities began remains unknown, but thousands are
thought to have been rounded up by the Israeli army and transferred to
undisclosed locations.

Walid*, a Palestinian worker born in Gaza, had lived in the occupied West
Bank for more than 25 years when Israel launched its relentless bombardment
<https://www.aljazeera.com/news/liveblog/2023/10/26/israel-hamas-war-live-un-ceasefire-bid-fails-as-gaza-death-toll-soars>
of Gaza which has so far killed more than 7,000 people and has lasted for
three weeks. On October 8, he was arrested as he headed for work and
detained in a facility in the Almon area, also known as Anatot, built on
the ruins of the Palestinian town of Anata that Israel confiscated in
occupied East Jerusalem.

The facility, human rights organisations say, is among those repurposed by
the Israeli government to hold hundreds of workers in arbitrary detention,
in breach of international law.

Walid, whose real name and personal details are being withheld to avoid
reprisals, described being kept in a “cage” without a roof, under the sun
and without food, water or access to the toilet for three days, according
to a written testimony given to the Israel-based human rights organisation
HaMoked and seen by Al Jazeera.

He was then moved to an area of about 300 square metres where hundreds of
labourers shared a chemical toilet cubicle. When he asked to contact the
Red Cross, he was cursed and beaten up by soldiers.

Walid was released after Israeli officers ascertained that, although he was
born in Gaza, he is a resident of the West Bank. His testimony is among the
few accounts to have so far emerged from the detention centres where Gaza
workers have been held incommunicado and without legal representation since
October 7.
Not clear ‘where, how many, under what legal status’

“We have been receiving hundreds and hundreds of phone calls from family
members of people who were working in Israel prior to the [October 7]
attacks,” Jessica Montell, executive director of HaMoked, told Al Jazeera.

So far, Montell says, more than 400 families and friends of missing people
have got in touch with the organisation, trying to trace their loved ones
as they simultaneously struggle to survive Israel’s bombardments and
“total” siege. Those calls have been dwindling in the past week as
residents of Gaza are increasingly cut off from communications.

As part of its work, HaMoked regularly submits the names of detainees to
the Israeli authorities to find out where they may be held.

“The Israeli military is supposed to inform us within 24 hours of who they
are holding, which location they are being held in,” Montell said. “But for
all those Gazans, they told us [they]’re not the right [authority to]
address.”

“It can’t be the case that it’s not clear where they’re being held, how
many are being held, under what conditions, under what legal status,” she
added.

A group of six local organisations, including HaMoked, have petitioned
Israel’s High Court to disclose the names and locations of the detainees
and to ensure humane holding conditions.

According to the petitioners, some of the Palestinians have been detained
in the Almon area – where Walid was detained – as well as in Ofer, near
Ramallah, and in Sde Teyman, near Beer al-Sabe (Be’er Sheva), in the
southern Naqab or Negev desert.

Once the hostilities began and the Beit Hanoun crossing (known as Erez to
Israelis) into northern Gaza was shut, workers attempted to make their way
to the West Bank to find shelter among Palestinian residents.

But on October 10, Israel’s Coordinator of Government Activities in the
Territories (COGAT) revoked all work permits it had previously issued to
Gaza residents, instantly turning permit-holders into “illegal aliens”.

Al Jazeera contacted the Israeli army, as well as COGAT, the body that
controls the permit system in the occupied territories. Both declined to
comment or provide further information on the number of workers whose
permits were revoked, as well as how many have been imprisoned and on what
grounds.
‘Unparalleled’

Miriam Marmur, advocacy director of Gisha, an Israeli human rights
organisation which calls for the freedom of movement of Palestinians, said
the situation was “unparalleled”.

“Of course, at any given point, there are thousands of Palestinians that
are being held in administrative detention by Israel,” she told Al Jazeera.
“But these are the first Palestinians to be held en masse. The nature of
their detention, the revocation of people’s permits and the fact that
Israel is so far refusing to divulge any information about where they are …
that is not something I have seen before,” she said.

Marmur added that the arrests were “illegal and appear to be acts of
vengeance which stand in violation of international law”.

Hamas seized at least 224 people as hostages as it waged its attack on
southern Israel on October 7, according to Israeli officials. Four have
since been released.

According to Walid’s testimony, one of the officers at a detention camp
told detainees there would be no chance of them being released as long as
there were Israeli hostages in Gaza.

“This isn’t an official statement, but certainly it’s an indication that,
at least to some of the people involved in this, there is a kind of desire
to use these workers as bargaining chips,” Marmur said.

Under Israel’s permit system, very few Palestinians from the Gaza Strip can
leave the territory, as all border crossings have been under Israeli or
Egyptian control since Hamas took power in 2007.

Permits can be issued for work, health and humanitarian reasons after
careful vetting by the Israeli authorities. Most of the workers from Gaza –
where the overall unemployment rate is 45 percent and youth unemployment
has soared to 70 percent – take up manual jobs in Israel, where the pay is
several times higher.

Human rights groups are concerned about further arrests amid continuing
raids
<https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2023/10/25/several-palestinians-killed-in-israeli-raids-in-occupied-west-bank-ministry>
in the West Bank, including in areas nominally under the full control of
the Palestinian Authority.

“We never had a situation like that, where people are trapped and can’t go
home, and are put in a sort of camp,” said Hassan Jabareen, the director of
Adalah, the legal centre for Arab minority rights in Israel. “These were
just workers. The only comparison is perhaps with [undocumented] refugees.”
Mass arrests

The Minister of Labour for the Palestinian Authority estimated that about
4,500 workers are unaccounted for and are believed to have been detained by
Israeli forces. Israeli media outlet N12 reported that 4,000 Palestinians
from Gaza were being interrogated in Israeli holding facilities over their
possible involvement in the attack.

Alongside Gaza workers, Israeli forces have detained more than 1,450
Palestinian residents of the West Bank since October 7, according to
estimates by the Palestinian Prisoners Society.

The arrests have taken place against a backdrop of laws and amendments that
human rights organisations say amount to punitive measures.

On October 18, the Israeli parliament, known as the Knesset, approved a
temporary plan that strips Palestinian prisoners of the right to at least
4.5 square metres of space, enabling cells that used to hold five people to
hold more than twice as many.

According to Physicians for Human Rights Israel (PHRI), authorities also
disconnected access to power and water supplies, limited the number of
meals per day, restricted prisoners to their cells and prevented access to
medical clinics and visits by legal representatives and other officials. At
least two prisoners have died while in custody since the beginning of the
latest round of hostilities.

“We are calling on the Israeli authorities to abide by international law
and allow food, water and visitations,” Naji Abbas, case manager at PHRI,
told Al Jazeera. “And to stop taking revenge on Palestinian prisoners.”
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