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<h1>Thousands of Gaza workers go ‘missing’ in Israel amid wartime mass arrests</h1><p class="gmail-article__subhead gmail-css-1wt8oh6"><em>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.</em></p><div class="gmail-responsive-image"><img src="https://www.aljazeera.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/10/33RX7ZF-highres-1698328231.jpg?resize=770%2C513&quality=80" alt="Israeli soldiers arrest a Palestinian man during a search operation in Baita village in the occupied West Bank" width="392" height="261" style="margin-right: 25px;"></div>Human
rights groups are concerned about further arrests amid continuing raids
in the occupied West Bank [File: Jaafar Ashtiyeh/AFP]<div class="gmail-article-info-block gmail-css-ti04u9"><div class="gmail-article-b-l" style="border-color:rgb(250,144,0)"><div class="gmail-article-author-name"><span class="gmail-article-by">By </span><span class="gmail-article-author-name-item"><a class="gmail-author-link" href="https://www.aljazeera.com/author/marsif">Federica Marsi</a><span><span> </span>and<span> </span></span></span><span class="gmail-article-author-name-item"><a class="gmail-author-link" href="https://www.aljazeera.com/author/ylenia_gostoli_150621113040057">Ylenia Gostoli</a></span></div><div class="gmail-article-dates" style="border-color:rgb(250,144,0)"><div class="gmail-date-simple gmail-css-1yjq2zp"><span class="gmail-screen-reader-text">Published On 28 Oct 2023</span><span aria-hidden="true"><br></span><font size="1"><a href="https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2023/10/28/thousands-of-gaza-workers-go-missing-in-israel-amid-wartime-mass-arrests">https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2023/10/28/thousands-of-gaza-workers-go-missing-in-israel-amid-wartime-mass-arrests</a></font></div></div></div><div class="gmail-social-share-buttons"><a class="gmail-social-share-button" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" aria-label="Share on Facebook" href="https://www.facebook.com/sharer/sharer.php?u=https%3A%2F%2Faje.io%2F204v0i"></a></div></div><a class="gmail-social-share-button" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" aria-label="Share on Twitter" href="https://twitter.com/intent/tweet?text=Israel%20secretly%20detaining%20thousands%20of%20missing%20Gaza%20workers%3A%20Rights%20groups&source=sharethiscom&related=sharethis&via=AJEnglish&url=https%3A%2F%2Faje.io%2F204v0i"></a><div class="gmail-article-info-block gmail-css-ti04u9"><div class="gmail-social-share-buttons"></div></div><div class="gmail-wysiwyg gmail-wysiwyg--all-content gmail-css-ibbk12"><p>Thousands
of workers from Gaza, who were employed in Israel when the war started,
have gone missing since then amid a campaign of <a href="https://www.aljazeera.com/program/newsfeed/2023/10/17/mass-arrests-of-palestinians-in-occupied-west-bank">mass arrests</a>.</p>
<p>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.</p>
<p>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.</p>
<p>Walid*, a Palestinian worker born in Gaza, had lived in the occupied West Bank for more than 25 years when Israel launched its <a href="https://www.aljazeera.com/news/liveblog/2023/10/26/israel-hamas-war-live-un-ceasefire-bid-fails-as-gaza-death-toll-soars">relentless bombardment</a>
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.</p>
<p>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.</p>
<p>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.</p>
<p>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.</p>
<p>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.</p>
<h2 id="gmail-not-clear-where-how-many-under-what-legal-status">Not clear ‘where, how many, under what legal status’</h2>
<p>“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.</p>
<p>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.</p></div><p>As part of its work, HaMoked regularly submits the names of detainees
to the Israeli authorities to find out where they may be held.</p>
<p>“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.”</p>
<p>“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.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>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.</p>
<p>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.</p>
<p>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.</p>
<p>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”.</p>
<p>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.</p>
<h2 id="gmail-unparalleled">‘Unparalleled’</h2>
<p>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”.</p>
<p>“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.</p>
<p>Marmur added that the arrests were “illegal and appear to be acts of vengeance which stand in violation of international law”.</p>
<p>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.</p>
<p>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.</p>
<p>“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.</p>
<p>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.</p>
<p>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.</p>
<p>Human rights groups are concerned about further arrests amid <a href="https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2023/10/25/several-palestinians-killed-in-israeli-raids-in-occupied-west-bank-ministry">continuing raids</a> in the West Bank, including in areas nominally under the full control of the Palestinian Authority.</p>
<p>“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.”</p>
<h2 id="gmail-mass-arrests">Mass arrests</h2>
<p>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.</p>
<p>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.</p>
<p>The arrests have taken place against a backdrop of laws and
amendments that human rights organisations say amount to punitive
measures.</p>
<p>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.</p>
<p>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.</p>
<p>“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.”</p>
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