{"id":82510,"date":"2026-04-25T03:09:14","date_gmt":"2026-04-25T03:09:14","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/82510\/"},"modified":"2026-04-25T03:09:14","modified_gmt":"2026-04-25T03:09:14","slug":"sheltering-in-tel-avivs-bus-station-foreign-workers-face-unique-plight-in-wartime","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/82510\/","title":{"rendered":"Sheltering in Tel Aviv’s bus station, foreign workers face unique plight in wartime"},"content":{"rendered":"

JTA \u2014 Two floors underground, past dumpsters and oil-laden puddles, through a reinforced Cold War-era door, a bomb shelter is buried underneath Tel Aviv\u2019s Central Bus Station.<\/p>\n

Built in 1993 to accommodate more than 16,000 Israelis, the shelter found new life during the Israel-Iran war as a public refuge for residents of Neve Shaanan, among Tel Aviv\u2019s most diverse neighborhoods and one of its poorest, home mainly to asylum seekers and foreign workers.<\/p>\n

With few other options for public shelters in south Tel Aviv, residents pitched tents in the squalor of a space that had fallen into disrepair \u2014 with pipes dripping and rats scurrying \u2014 for more than 38 days as Israel and Iran exchanged missile fire until a ceasefire that began on April 8 halted the fighting.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s very difficult. Not just because of the war, but because of the conditions we\u2019re living in,\u201d Gloria Arca, who took refuge inside the shelter with her son, Noam, said in Spanish during an interview in April. \u201cWe\u2019re protected from the missiles, but inside we\u2019re not safe.\u201d<\/p>\n

For many Israelis, the bus station occupies a space that balances between nostalgia and revulsion. Until 2018, the station was a main node for travel in and out of Tel Aviv. Since then, ridership has dropped, and now the hulking structure is seen as little more than an eyesore. During Israel\u2019s 12-day war with Iran last year, a short video<\/a> by Israeli comedians went viral for sharing the station\u2019s GPS coordinates in a video that jokingly urged Iran, \u201cPlease don\u2019t bomb this bus station.\u201d<\/p>\n

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Yet the station also offers a concrete window into Israel\u2019s widening reliance on foreign workers, which has surged in the wake of the October 7, 2023, Hamas onslaught.<\/p>\n

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\n\t\tTwo children stand, playing on astroturf recently installed with the help of the Workers Hotline. (Theia Chatelle\/ JTA)<\/p>\n

When there is no war, the shelter functions as a community center, complete with a Filipino church, a refugee health clinic, and retailers catering to customers in more than a dozen languages.<\/p>\n

During wartime, the station takes on a new and vitally important role as a shelter for those who have none in their homes or neighborhoods, no family in the country whose homes they can flee to and little ability to pay for temporary accommodation somewhere safer.<\/p>\n

Arca, who came to Israel more than two decades ago from Colombia and is in the country legally, knew that it would take her and Noam more than 10 minutes to get to a shelter from their home \u2014\u00a0longer than Israel\u2019s advanced missile warning system allows. So they decided to move into the bus station, pitching a tent alongside some of their neighbors.<\/p>\n

Depending on the day, more than 200 residents spent their nights in the shelter during the war, according to Sigal Rozen, public policy coordinator at the Hotline for Refugees and Migrants.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s not easy, especially with young children and families with special needs,\u201d she said. \u201cYou can\u2019t get up in the middle of the night and just run.\u201d<\/p>\n

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\n\t\tGloria Arca sits with Sigal Rozen in a public shelter. (Theia Chatelle\/ JTA)<\/p>\n

The Hotline, with funding from the Tel Aviv Municipality, worked to improve conditions in the shelter, but the starting point was dire. During a visit in April, rats could be seen scurrying across newly installed artificial turf meant to brighten the space, and mosquitoes landed on visitors\u2019 ankles before being chased off.<\/p>\n

More than anything, Arca worries about safety in the shelter \u2014 but not from the war. \u201cWe\u2019re protected from the missiles, but inside, we\u2019re not safe,\u201d she said. \u201cSecurity is there, but they don\u2019t do their job. Drug users come in and use the bathrooms. There are many children here, and we\u2019re afraid.\u201d<\/p>\n

The challenging conditions were nothing new to many of the people who moved in, who represent an often unseen but growing sector of workers in Israel.<\/p>\n

The category of \u201cforeign worker,\u201d\u00a0 a term used in Israel to describe non-citizen laborers, most of them from countries such as the Philippines, India, and Thailand, who enter the country on temporary work visas tied to a specific employer, has long been a fraught designation.<\/p>\n

Dominant in some industries, such as home health care, where there are so many foreign workers that the role is known as \u201cfilipina\u201d in Hebrew, foreign workers have taken on greater shares of other sectors in recent years, particularly after Israel banned Palestinian workers from Gaza and the West Bank after October 7. With Israelis increasingly reluctant to take low-paying manual labor jobs, the Israeli government has moved to fill the gap by permitting employers to hire more foreign workers.<\/p>\n

Israel\u2019s foreign worker population rose<\/a> by 41 percent in 2024 alone to more than 156,000. By 2025, the total had reached 227,044. It is expected to grow even more in the coming years, as the government has set a ceiling of 300,000 workers.<\/p>\n

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\n\t\tA Thai worker, pictured on November 3, 2024, picks the last of the sweet mini-peppers at Kibbutz Alumim, in southern Israel. (Sue Surkes\/Times of Israel)<\/p>\n

For many Israelis, footage that circulated after the ceasefire showing long lines of foreign workers arriving at newly reopened government offices to renew their visas offered a stark illustration of the growing sector.<\/p>\n

It is not uncommon around the world for people from impoverished countries to migrate to countries with more work and higher pay. For the workers, occupying a tenuous legal status can be worth the risk in order to support their families, send their children to better schools and earn wages on a different scale than in their home countries.<\/p>\n

Evelyn, a Filipina caregiver sheltering with her three children beneath the Central Bus Station, declined to give her last name out of fear of deportation. \u201cIn Israel, I can earn 10 times what I do in the Philippines. So I have money to send back to my family \u2014 not just taking care of my kids here, but my parents in Manila.\u201d<\/p>\n

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\n\t\tThe entrance to the bomb shelter beneath Tel Aviv\u2019s Central Bus Station. (Theia Chatelle\/ JTA)<\/p>\n

But advocates for the workers say foreign worker status, and Israel\u2019s increasing reliance on foreign workers, creates conditions that are ripe for abuse. Ohad Amar, executive director of Kav LaOved, a nonprofit that works to uphold equal labor rights for all workers in Israel, said the workers are \u201cenduring conditions akin to modern slavery.\u201d<\/p>\n

Many foreign worker visas in Israel are tied to a specific employer and are non-transferable. Kav LaOved has documented numerous cases of delayed or unpaid wages, as well as workers who feel pressured to remain silent about abuse from their employers lest they lose their immigration status.<\/p>\n

\u201cIsrael had not relied on migrant workers in the same way before. This is the first time at this scale,\u201d Amar said. \u201cEvery day we are getting reports of workers\u2019 rights violations, and we are completely overwhelmed.\u201d<\/p>\n

During wartime, foreign workers are frequently exposed to Israel\u2019s unique dangers in extreme ways. On October 7, as sirens blared, foreign workers were slaughtered in the fields of kibbutzes near Gaza. During the most recent war, videos circulated<\/a> online of construction workers from China who filmed themselves stranded high in the air during missile barrages, afraid and without protection.<\/p>\n

The first<\/a> death in the latest round of fighting with Iran was Mary Anne Velasquez de Vera, a foreign worker in Israel from the Philippines. At the end of March, two other foreign workers were killed<\/a> by a Hezbollah rocket while working in a field in northern Israel after they were unable to reach shelter.<\/p>\n

Feeling physically vulnerable is an experience many foreign workers in Israel know well. Evelyn, a migrant from the Philippines who slept in the bus station with her children during the war, described how, in an industry as intimate as caregiving, working with elderly people who struggle to make it to a shelter, workers can feel pressured to stay in the building during an attack.<\/p>\n

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\n\t\tThai survivors fom a deadly Hamas attack on the foreign workers\u2019 living quarters at Gaza border Kibbutz Alumim visit an injured co-worker at Soroka Hospital in Beersheba, southern Israel, on Ocober 12, 2023. (Courtesy, Gad Shparer)<\/p>\n

\u201cThey can\u2019t exactly tell their employer they left grandma in the building during a missile attack, because they\u2019ll get fired and lose their visa,\u201d Amar said.<\/p>\n

Some of the risks are much less visible. Evelyn was out of work as a housekeeper for the duration of the war when her employer, an elderly woman, left the country. She lived on donations from community members and civil society organizations.<\/p>\n

\u201cHere is still better than back home,\u201d she said. \u201cBut we are all struggling, and not just because of the shelter. If I can\u2019t start working soon, I really don\u2019t know what I will do.\u201d<\/p>\n

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\n\t\tA tent stands in front of a mural on the minus-two level of the bus station. (Theia Chatelle\/ JTA)<\/p>\n

Workers like Evelyn, who lack work visas, must rely on informal employment, making them ineligible for compensation from Bituach Leumi, Israel\u2019s national workers\u2019 insurance, when they go unpaid. But having a visa did not solve the challenges of war, Rozen said.<\/p>\n

The threat of losing their visa if they lose their employment hangs over the heads of the workers, forcing them into difficult decisions, like whether to leave their children with volunteers at the shelter or alone at home.<\/p>\n

\u201cEven those who still have work face a problem. If a single mother has children and there\u2019s no school, where does she leave them? She can\u2019t bring them along when there\u2019s an alarm,\u201d Rozen said. \u201cSo even when work exists, many can\u2019t do it.\u201d<\/p>\n

She said the war had offered a glimpse into the as-yet-unaddressed challenges that come along with Israel\u2019s increasing reliance on importing labor from abroad. The country\u2019s labor market didn\u2019t come to a standstill, as was the case in other countries in the region, such as the United Arab Emirates, where the vast majority of workers are migrants who tried to leave, but for Rozen, something new and troubling was laid bare.<\/p>\n

\u201cIf you don\u2019t want foreigners here, then don\u2019t recruit them,\u201d Rozen said. \u201cBut you can\u2019t recruit them, triple their numbers, and then expect them to disappear when there\u2019s a war.\u201d<\/p>\n

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