Hebron- Young men at the end of their lives, their paths were narrow and their debts had accumulated. They embarked on dangerous adventures in pursuit of work or a source of livelihood to meet the needs of their families, but the winds turned against their desires. They returned either as martyrs or with fractures in their feet, pelvis, or spine, and some of them suffered permanent disabilities.
These are workers from the West Bank. They relied on working in the green zone in the construction, agriculture, industry and other sectors to provide their income, but the occupation prevented them from returning to their work with the start of its aggression against Gaza on October 7, 2023.
Due to the closure of the crossings linking the West Bank to the occupied territories in 1948, workers embark on the adventure of climbing to the separation wall via stairs, provided by paid people, reaching a height of 9 meters, then descending to the other side via a rope tied to the top of the wall.
In the adventure of jumping off the wall, the workers face several challenges, including the interruption of their cord while descending, and hardly a day goes by without injuries reaching West Bank hospitals, in addition to being pursued by the occupation army and then beaten and arrested.
The last victims were two workers who were martyred on Tuesday near the separation wall in the city of Qalqilya, in the northern West Bank, while trying to cross the wall in search of work.
Tel Aviv Tribune Net met a number of workers who went through the experience of climbing the wall and jumping rope to the other side, and conveyed their experiences.
True story
Until October 2023, Samer Al-Shahatit (38 years old) continued to depend for his income on his work with a Palestinian contractor within the Green Line, which provided him with a monthly income of no less than two thousand dollars, but with the prevention of workers’ entry, his income stopped completely.
Al-Shahatit waited for long months in the hope that the workers would be allowed to return to their work. Debts piled up on him, and he was unable to provide for the minimum needs of his family of 8 people. He had no choice but to try climbing the wall and jumping off it, but he suffers from excessive obesity, and his climbing and descending the stairs was difficult. On the rope is a risky adventure.
With the help of his father, Samer decided to undergo a gastric bypass surgery to reduce his weight. Indeed, he succeeded in losing 50 kilograms within 4 months, and he felt that he was now able to climb the ladder and descend the rope despite the risks surrounding the adventure: falling from the wall or being arrested.
What the young man expected happened. The rope slipped out of his hand at a height of 3 meters, so he fell while standing. Within minutes, he began to feel pain and was no longer able to stand as a result of two broken feet. He managed to manage his situation and returned to the nearest Palestinian hospital.
Al-Shahatit stayed in the hospital for 8 days, and according to the doctors’ recommendations, he cannot return to walking for 3 months, which constitutes an additional burden on him as a result of the treatment expenses.
He explained that his family and others like it need at least 5,000 shekels (about 1,400 dollars) to provide their basic needs, at a time when workers lack someone to help them.
Press coverage | Scenes from the farewell of the martyr Diaa Salmi, who died after the occupation opened fire on him, along with the martyr Muhammad Al-Ashqar, near the separation wall in the city of Qalqilya. pic.twitter.com/p2MpfI9qTR
– Quds News Network (@qudsn) December 17, 2024
First try
For his part, the young man, “Ahmed,” who preferred not to reveal his full name, said that he found working inside Israel an opportunity to provide an income more than double what an average government employee earns in the West Bank. He quickly got married, started a family, and had a daughter.
After the seventh of October, “Ahmed” tried to look for work in the West Bank and waited for nearly 14 months to no avail. Debts and his family’s obligations piled up on him, so he decided to embark on the adventure of jumping off the wall to join work with a contractor from the Palestinians of 1948, but his journey stopped at a high. 4 metres, the climbing rope broke and he fell to the ground, sustaining fractures in his spine. He began a long journey of treatment, without any source of income.
This type of injury is registered under the category of “occupation injuries,” and those who suffer are treated for free in Palestinian government hospitals.
In the case of “Hamza”, a father of four children in his late twenties, he was fed up, so he tried to cross the wall, but he fell from a similar height and sustained a severe injury to one of his feet and bruises to the other, rendering him completely unable to move.
What added to Hamza’s tragedy was the arrival of an occupation army patrol at the moment of his fall. They arrested him and dragged him to the military vehicle without taking into account his injury, then threw him near a military checkpoint outside the wall to be transported by a Palestinian ambulance to the hospital.
Hamza says, “The fall did not hurt me as much as the soldiers hurt me. I felt as if my feet had been cut off and all that was left was the skin.”
10 martyrs
According to the estimate of the General Federation of Palestinian Trade Unions, at least 10 workers were martyred while trying to reach their workplaces and 7 during arrest. They are among 49 Palestinians who died in work accidents while searching for a living inside the Green Line and in the West Bank since the beginning of the current year 2024.
Saeed Omran, a media coordinator in the union, told Tel Aviv Tribune Net that hundreds of workers suffered fractures and bruises throughout the West Bank as a result of falling from the wall or being shot while trying to cross the wall from the West Bank to inside the Green Line, the last of whom were martyrs Dhia Sharif Salmi (32 years old). And Muhammad Zaki Al-Ashqar (31 years old), from the city of Qalqilya, today, Tuesday.
He added that the union is making contacts with government agencies to help workers, but its role was prominent in sheltering Gaza workers who were stranded and deported to the West Bank when the war on the Strip began, and providing their needs and financial payments. As for West Bank workers, he pointed out that free health insurance is provided to them.
The Union contacted the Palestine Monetary Authority to exempt workers from the check return fees charged by banks and to provide them with financial advances with guarantees due to the cessation of their work and the prevention of them from reaching their workshops in Israel, but the banks did not comply.
He said that the financial situation of the Authority is difficult. However, an initiative was announced to provide interest-free loans that benefited about 6,000 workers, but this number does not exceed 1% of the unemployed.
Sue Israel
Omran said that there is a move by the International Labor Organization to demand that Israel compensate about 205,000 workers who have been unemployed since the start of the war on October 7, 2023. He revealed that Palestinian workers constitute about 20% of the workforce in Israel.
An International Labor Organization report published last November stated that more than half a million jobs were lost in Palestine after the war on Gaza. About 200,000 of them are in Gaza and about 300,000 in the West Bank, causing daily losses amounting to $21.7 million.
Meanwhile, data from the General Federation of Palestinian Trade Unions indicate a monthly loss estimated at approximately 1.250 billion shekels per month (about 350 million dollars) as a result of workers being unable to return to their jobs in Israel.