Israel brings back 10 ‘missing’ Indians from West Bank

Earlier in the day, the Israeli media had reported quoting the Population and Immigration Authority that “10 foreign workers from India were rescued overnight from a West Bank village where they had been held for over a month”.

The Times of Israel quoted the authority saying: “Palestinians had lured the workers to the West Bank village of al-Zaayem with promises of work and then taken their passports and tried to use them to cross into Israel.”

“The workers, who had originally come to Israel to work in construction, were rescued in an overnight operation led by the authority together with the IDF and the Justice Ministry. They have been transferred to a safe location until their employment status is determined. The IDF had identified the illicit use of the passports and later returned them to their owners,” it said.

About 16,000 labourers have come to Israel from India in the last year as part of an Israeli government effort to fill a void left when tens of thousands of Palestinian construction workers were barred from entering Israel after Hamas’s October 7, 2023, attack.