50 years on, Israel keeps tight grip on Palestinian economy
SALFIT, Palestinian Territory — Fuad Maraita’s alarm goes off at 3:30 a.m. His hometown of Salfit, in the Israeli-occupied West Bank, still lies in darkness.
He drinks a cup of strong Arabic coffee and a glass of milk in silence. A few minutes later, he slings a cloth bag with his lunch over his shoulder, gets on a minibus and starts the grueling journey to his job laying tiles at a construction site near Tel Aviv.
Maraita, 62, is one of tens of thousands of Palestinians who make the long trek to Israel on any given day. Fifty years after Israel captured the West Bank, the Gaza Strip and east Jerusalem, this army of labourers is one of the most visible signs of the occupation.
Israeli control has held back the Palestinian economy, making decent-paying jobs in the territories scarce. Stripped of choices, Palestinians work in Israel, where their average pay is the minimum wage— still more than double what they would earn at home. For Israel, they are a source of cheap labour, building homes, fixing cars and serving food.