Foreign volunteers replace workers who fled Israeli farms under fire

Rather than stretch out under the Caribbean sun, Mark Landsman has been spending his vacation picking tomatoes in Israel, unpaid and in striking range of Palestinian rockets.

The New Jersey man, among thousands of foreigners who have come to southern Israeli farms emptied of labourers by more than three months of war in the Gaza Strip, sees volunteering as an act of solidarity at a crucial time.

"People are saying, 'Where are you going for vacation? I'm sure you're going to go to Florida, maybe the Bahamas, maybe on a cruise.' And I said, 'No, I'm going to Israel,'" he told Reuters while pacing along the trellises in Hatsav, a farming community 36 km (22 miles) from the Palestinian enclave.

"Why would you want to go to a warfront? ... I just feel like I want to be part of this and help out and just do my part."

Farmers and their mostly Thai and Nepalese labourers were among the victims of the Oct. 7 killing and kidnapping rampage by Hamas-led Palestinian gunmen from Gaza that triggered the war. Overnight, stretches of cultivated Israeli desert abundant in produce were abandoned, their harvests looking likely to rot.

Civil society groups within Israel mobilised online, with one app directing people with free time to farms based on location and preferred type of activity. Shuttered universities offered students financial aid in return for agricultural work.

Such initiatives soon resonated abroad, where the Gaza war has polarised an already intense debate over the fates of Israelis and Palestinians after decades of intractable feuding.

ISRAELI FARMERS NEED HELP

About 1,200 people were killed and around 240 hostages were seized on Oct. 7, Israel says. Palestinian health officials say at least 25,700 people have been killed in Gaza in Israel's retaliatory military campaign to wipe out Hamas.

According to the U.S. office of the non-profit Jewish National Fund (JNF), Israel has drawn more than 145,000 foreign volunteers during the war.

"The farmers could not survive without the help of the volunteers. The volunteers are there filling the gap," said the JNF's Gil Macklaine. "Without them, the many farmers would collapse."

Israel's Agriculture Ministry has said that there is a shortfall of some 30,000 workers and was trying to bring in people from Sri Lanka, India and Vietnam to help.

According to the latest parliamentary data from 2021, 73,500 people worked in the agriculture sector - 44% Israeli, 33% foreigners, mostly Thai, and 23% Palestinian.

Farmers interviewed by Reuters have privately described the volunteers as useful for simple jobs such as crop-picking, but not for operating machines. Many volunteers come for a day or two, meaning that they are unlikely to build skills, but their high turnover means more hands soon come along, the farmers say.

Volunteers can opt for the Gaza periphery or farms in the north, which have been similarly hobbled by rocket attacks from Lebanon. They are shown the nearest bomb shelter or instructed to lie down in the dirt and cover their heads if sirens sound.

"We chose to come to Israel to help because it's hard to sit at home in Los Angeles and watch what's happening and not want to do something," said Lisa Liner, of Los Angeles, as she boxed tomatoes in Hatsav.

"This was something we could do - to come and help whoever needed help, and it's mostly farmers. So we are doing whatever we're asked to do."