Swetasree Ghosh Roy
When 65 Indian construction workers landed in Israel on April 2 to start jobs once taken by Palestinians, they were flying into a firestorm. Eleven days after their arrival, Iran launched hundreds of drones and missiles on Tel Aviv and other Israeli cities, as the six-month war in the Middle East threatened to spiral out of control.
The Indian laborers were the first of a planned 1,500 due to land in Israel in April, as part of a deal struck last November between Jerusalem and New Delhi after Israel canceled the work permits of about 90,000 Palestinian workers in the wake of the October 7 Hamas attacks and Israel’s subsequent invasion of Gaza.
Two days after the Iranian attack, India halted the dispatch of a second batch of workers. Yet the fate of 18,000 Indian caregivers and agricultural workers already working in Israel hangs in the balance with fears that the conflict might intensify.
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