When Taha Amin-Ismail Khalifeh dialled into a conference call with his Israeli employer last month, the Palestinian hotel worker expected a briefing on how the Israel-Hamas conflict was affecting business. Instead, he and 40 others were laid off, Reuters reports.

Khalifeh, who lives in the Israeli-occupied West Bank, had worked as a housekeeper in a hotel in East Jerusalem for more than 20 years. Israel has also sent back thousands of Palestinians to the besieged Gaza Strip.

Like many of them, Khalifeh had mixed feelings about working for an Israeli business, but it was his best option for a reliable paycheque. Unemployment is running at about 46 per cent in Gaza and 13pc in the West Bank, and wages are much lower.

“There is nothing that would provide us with a living except working in Israel,” Khalifeh told the Thomson Reuters Foundation by phone. “We have no other choice.”

Now jobless for more than a month, he fears he may never be able to return as Israeli businesses urge the government to plug the labour gap left by the Palestinian workers from nations including India and Sri Lanka.