These steps are being carried out as part of a Ministry of Tourism plan to replace Palestinian workers with migrant workers, in accordance with a government decision from May 2024. This is Government Decision No. 1752 of 15.5.24, which set an overall cap of 330,000 foreign workers in the Israeli labor market compared to 110,000 before the war. (more on the destructive nature of this Government decision see here:
Several Palestinian workers who have been employed in Fattal hotels for years contacted MAAN in an attempt to reverse this harsh measure. According to the letters summoning them to pre-dismissal hearings, which they received early July 2025, the reason for the dismissals remained vague. The workers were surprised to read in the hearing notices that the justification was not a reduction in work or a personal complaint against them, but rather that the authorities intended to soon revoke their permits to enter Israel.
Moreover, the workers reported that, alongside the plan to dismiss them, Dead Sea hotels were hiring migrant workers from Sri Lanka, who, according to their understanding, were to replace them. It should be noted that the company has continued to employ the Palestinian workers consistently since October 2023. Many of them have been working in these hotels for years, including during the COVID-19 pandemic.
Following this troubling information, in mid-July MAAN’s Exe. Director wrote to the Fattal Group demanding clarifications regarding the grounds for the dismissals, which, at first glance, appear to lack any factual or legal basis. In a reply sent to MAAN in early August, Fattal’s legal counsel, Attorney Michael Eylon of the law firm Gornitzky & Co., wrote that the matter was essentially the implementation of a government policy that obliges Fattal to comply.
In documents attached to his response, Attorney Eylon included instructions from the Ministry of Tourism to hotels, directing them to act in two phases. By the end of the process, hotels are required to end all employment of Palestinian workers.
The Ministry of Tourism’s instruction document, dated 24.7.2025, states:
"The allocation of quotas for employing foreign workers from abroad, whether in the first phase already carried out or in the second phase and thereafter, is intended to replace the allocation of quotas for Palestinian workers… Once the foreign workers enter Israel, the Ministry of Tourism will no longer recommend the allocation of quota permits for employing Palestinian workers in the hotel industry."
The meaning of these instructions is clear: thousands more Palestinian families will be pushed into poverty and uncertainty, while manpower companies stand to earn a fortune for each migrant worker brought to Israel.
The move being implemented in the hotel sector is a direct continuation of the May 2024 government decision to dramatically increase the number of migrant workers and to permanently halt the employment of Palestinians. In addition to the direct harm to the workers themselves, the arrival of tens — and according to the plan, hundreds — of thousands of migrant workers into Israel will severely damage the status and wages of Israeli workers.
Prof. Zvi Eckstein, who headed the committee for regulating the employment of Palestinian workers while serving as Deputy Governor of the Bank of Israel, and who now serves as Dean of the School of Economics at Reichman University, commented on this policy in an interview, stating:
"The government’s discussion is superficial. It is a discussion held by people who lack knowledge about how to bring Palestinian workers into Israel without harming security." At a conference held in May 2024, immediately after the adoption of the government decision, Prof. Eckstein further noted that, in his assessment, the intention to bring 330,000 migrant workers into the economy will lead to lower wages and reduced use of technology in all sectors in which they will work, such as construction and agriculture. Their cost will be so low that it will not be worthwhile to train them to use these systems — a factor that will harm economic growth.
MAAN – Workers Association views the government’s decision to prevent Palestinian workers from entering Israel since October 2023 as a mistaken and destructive move that harms both the workers and the Israeli economy. In the long term, this step — taken by an extreme right-wing government — undermines the possibility of mutual acquaintance and understanding between the two peoples living side by side.
For more information on the subject and its long-term implications, see the article in Zman Israel:
