Raju Nishad is just one of around 16,000 workers who have come from India over the past year — and Israel has plans to bring thousands more, AFP reports.
Wearing a safety belt, helmet and work boots, Raju Nishad navigates the scaffolding, hammering blocks that will form part of a building in a new neighbourhood in central Israel’s town of Beer Yaakov.
While he and other Indians working alongside him do not look out of place on the expansive construction site, they are relative newcomers to Israel’s building industry. They are part of an Israeli government effort to fill a void left by tens of thousands of Palestinian construction workers barred from entering Israel since Oct 7, 2023.
None of the conflicts in the region have deterred Nishad, 35, from coming to Israel.
“There’s nothing to be afraid of here,” he said, despite several air raid warnings that have sent him running for the shelters. “Once it [the siren] stops, we just resume our work,” he told AFP.
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