They are Jews or Arabs, teachers or lawyers: these volunteers from Haifa in northern Israel use their free time to help Israeli-Arab farmers who have been lacking workers since the start of the war in Gaza.
In Baqa al-Gharbiya, an hour's drive south, Marwan Abou Yassine welcomes with open arms these city residents who have temporarily exchanged pens and clothes for a pair of boots.
“I had 16 Thai workers, nine left the country because of the war, and I had 15 workers who came from the West Bank but can no longer come to Israel because of the roadblocks,” laments this 55-year-old vegetable gardener. .
Marwan Abou Yassine, like other Israeli Arabs, is a descendant of Palestinians who remained on their land after the founding of the State of Israel in 1948, whose community now makes up around 20% of the country's population and says they are victims of discrimination Jews in the majority.
This farmer usually farms 150 dunams (about 15 hectares), but he says he can only farm 40 or 50 this season because he was only able to hire seven people and the work of volunteers, when welcome, is not enough.
Some pick cucumbers that day, others put plants on stakes, but none replaces a worker accustomed to hard work in the fields.
And the costs remain that of a farm of 150 dunams because he still has to maintain his land, especially the plastic greenhouses.
Israel, which is waging an offensive against Hamas in the Gaza Strip in retaliation for the Palestinian Islamist movement's bloody attack on its territory on October 7, is suddenly closed in on itself, all the way to the occupied West Bank, frozen by additional restrictions on movement.
“To support one another”
Israel has also suspended work permits in Israel for around 130,000 workers from this part of the Palestinian Territories.
There are many agricultural businesses on the Israeli side in the area surrounding the Gaza Strip and the numerous Thais working there were also victims of the Hamas fire on October 7th.
Several dozen of them were killed, injured and taken hostage in Gaza. This tragedy has caused fear among the 30,000 nationals working in Israel, who have left the country in large numbers.
Israeli farms therefore no longer have hands to pick and plant fruits and vegetables.
“We have to support each other,” explains Abir Abdel Ghani, a 33-year-old lawyer who finds it “very fun” to try her hand at picking. However, she realizes that “one day of work is not enough” to solve the problem.
Youssef Sader, a retired physics professor, also came to pick up his “brothers” and expects that at the end of the day he will be exhausted but happy because he will have “still helped the farmers a little.”
“Take a step”
Other people of good will were preparing to pick strawberries when the rain caught them by surprise. Tired of waiting for warmer skies, they finally gave up.
For Guy, 56, an Israeli and Jewish social worker, volunteering for the harvest in Baqa al-Gharbiya is “very important for good relations between Jews and Arabs in Israel.”
“We all have to take a step towards each other,” he continues.
It was the farmers themselves who launched calls for volunteers, as Ibrahim Mawasi, coordinator of the volunteer associations, explains.
“A week after the war we came together and decided to mobilize all the people who wanted to save what could be saved from agriculture.”
“Volunteers help us as much as they can, but that’s not really what we need, we need skilled workers,” explains the 65-year-old farmer.
The government's war cabinet is torn over the issue of the return of thousands of Palestinian workers to Israel. Ministers who oppose it are now proposing to bring tens of thousands of workers into the country from abroad, particularly from India.