RAMALLAH, December 29, 2025 (WAFA) – Secretary General of the Palestinian General Federation of Trade Unions, Shaher Saad, condemned the blatant threats issued by Israel’s far-right National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir, which included explicit incitement to shoot and kill Palestinian workers attempting to cross into Israel for work.
Saad said that incitement carried out on colonists’ platforms, through the circulation of video footage showing Palestinian workers attempting to cross into Israel for work by climbing the apartheid wall, reflects a climate primed for carrying out a series of targeted killings against workers.
He warned of the dangers of this approach adopted by official Israeli bodies and often carried out through undeclared means, amid a continued rise in the number of workers killed while seeking their livelihoods during the current year.
Saad called on labor institutions and trade unions around the world to take serious action to pursue crimes committed against Palestinian workers, expose them at the international level, and work toward establishing international mechanisms and courts to hold all those involved accountable.
He explained that Israeli occupation policies, over more than two years of ongoing aggression, have led to more than 500,000 Palestinian workers losing their sources of income, while unemployment rates have surged to unprecedented levels, exceeding 50 percent in the occupied West Bank, more than 84 percent in the Gaza Strip, and around 44 percent in besieged areas, particularly those most heavily targeted by military checkpoints and closed zones.
Saad also warned of a plan to establish a special detention facility for Palestinian workers, scheduled to be built next April, according to Ben-Gvir’s own statements, stressing that the plan aims to isolate Palestinian laborers, subject them to humiliation and abuse, and place them beyond any international or human rights oversight.
He addressed a message to the Director-General of the International Labour Organization, as well as international, regional, and Arab trade unions, urging them to assume their legal and moral responsibilities. He stressed that the threats issued by Ben-Gvir and colonists’ leaders constitute a flagrant violation of international labor conventions, particularly those prohibiting forced and compulsory labor in all its forms.
T.R.
