6,000 Indian construction workers to arrive in Israel in April and May, says Israeli government

Over 6,000 construction workers from India will arrive in Israel in April and May, the Israeli government said on Wednesday amid its war on Gaza.

The Israeli government added that the workers will be brought from India on an “air shuttle”. This was the largest number of foreign workers to arrive in the country for the construction sector in a short time, it said in a statement.

The statement said that the decision was taken by the Israeli Prime Minister’s Office, the country’s finance ministry, and the construction and housing ministry.

The workers from India were being sent to Israel under a government-to-government agreement between the two countries, PTI reported.

In November, reports stated that the construction industry in Israel had asked the Indian government to allow companies to recruit one lakh Indian workers to replace the 90,000 Palestinians whose work permits had been cancelled since Israel’s war on Gaza started in October.

A month later, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s office had said that he had discussed “advancing the arrival of foreign workers from India to the State of Israel” with Prime Minister Narendra Modi.

India’s external affairs ministry had said at the time that India had not discussed with Israel the possibility of Indians workers replacing Palestinian labourers in the West Asian nation. However, the National Skills Development Corporation had...

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