The nongovernmental organization Worker's Hotline, which advocates for workers' rights, estimates that about 10,000 Thai workers are employed in Israel, most of them in the fields of the south — places described these days in the media as “open spaces.” When Israelis hear on the news that a rocket from Gaza landed in an open area, as opposed to one that is built up, they feel relieved. But for the Thai laborers, the fields are a battlefront in every sense, except that for the most part they are not equipped with shelters or an Iron Dome missile defense system. And so, sadly, a foreign laborer was killed on July 23 by a mortar shell while working in one of the hothouses in the Hof Ashkelon Regional Council.

In recent weeks, some Thai workers have posted photos on their Facebook pages, as well as on the page of the Worker's Hotline, showing their predicament since the start of the clashes in the south. They took pictures of themselves standing next to iron poles scarred by bullet holes, inside hothouses destroyed by rockets and also cowering under trees — absent any real shelter. According to the Worker's Hotline, ”Although the hiring of migrant farm laborers is now governed by a bilateral agreement between the two countries, neither country takes upon itself the responsibility for the workers’ safety in times of war."

Last week, the organization wrote to the Ministry of Defense, saying, “With the escalation of the past week, information has reached us that only a handful of farmers have bought portable shelters for their workers and placed them near their living quarters and work areas,” and demanded to know how the Ministry of Defense intends to deal with this issue. Right now, they explain, the farmers do not know whether the state will compensate them for lost revenue as a result of the fighting, and they therefore send their workers to the fields that lack sufficient shelters.

Noa Shauer, the Worker's Hotline coordinator of farm workers, tells Al-Monitor the Worker's Hotline is inundated with calls. “Many workers have been calling us in recent days, mainly about being forced to go out and work in open areas on the Gaza border, in the Shaar Hanegev, Eshkol and Ramat Negev regional councils. They are forced to work in open areas, where rockets land, without any chance of reaching a shelter when the warning sirens go off. They are not protected,” she says. “There are several recurring themes in these calls. Some say, 'I’m being forced to go to work and I don’t want to, talk to my employer.' Others recount that 'rockets are falling here, I want to return home, what should I do?' Others, still, ask to be placed elsewhere, but the placement agencies [private firms licensed by the state] reject responsibility for them.”