Hmmm…. the story might be a bit more complicated than this spin by The New Yorker:

Note – the original article is behind a paywall. I was not able to access the original article, although AI apparently was and sort of summarized it, below.

Grok’s AI Analysis

There is a security-based reason tied to events and intelligence gathering before the October 7, 2023, Hamas massacre.

The New Yorker criticizes Israel’s continued restrictions (often called a “ban”) on most Palestinian workers entering Israel for jobs, framing it as causing family hardship in the West Bank and Gaza. It notes the policy is justified on security grounds but questions how long it will last. (The Israeli Employers Who Want to Bring Palestinian Workers Back | The New Yorker)

Before the October 7th attack, Israel issued work permits to thousands of Palestinians—roughly 18,000–20,000 from Gaza and over 100,000–120,000 from the West Bank at peak. Many Gazans worked in agriculture, construction, and services in southern Israeli communities near the Gaza border (kibbutzim, moshavim, etc.).

Hamas exploited access to these areas for reconnaissance. Israeli Police spokesman Supt. Micky Rosenfeld stated in March 2024 that Palestinian workers (including long-trusted gardeners from Gaza) provided detailed information to Hamas. This included maps of police stations, army bases, kibbutzim layouts, power lines to cut, and specifics on homes—such as the number and names of residents, and even whether families had dogs. Attackers used this to knock on doors and target people. Rosenfeld noted maps with this level of detail were recovered from terrorists’ bodies.

Hamas produced highly detailed operational plans for the attack, showing intimate knowledge of the border communities that went far beyond what drones or open observation could provide. This intelligence helped enable the surprise element of the massacre, in which Hamas and other groups killed about 1,200 people (mostly civilians) and took over 250 hostages.

Post-attack policy and the debate over worker involvement

Immediately after October 7, Israel suspended nearly all work permits for Gazans and initially restricted West Bank entries as well, citing the compromised system and infiltration risks. Some limited West Bank permits were later reinstated selectively with stricter vetting; Gazan ones largely remained suspended. Israel has shifted toward foreign workers from countries like India to fill labor shortages.

A Shin Bet investigation (reported March 2024) examined about 3,000 Gazan permit holders (roughly 16% of the pre-war Gaza workforce) and concluded there was no broad, concerted effort by these workers as a group to spy or pass intelligence to Hamas. It found no evidence of mass collaboration from the workers themselves.

There is some nuance here: Shin Bet addressed “en masse” spying, while police statements pointed to specific workers or individuals with worker access providing actionable intel. Hamas could also have gathered details through other means (operatives, social engineering, prior observations). The key point for Israeli policy is that the system itself created vulnerability—easy daily access to sensitive areas by people from a territory ruled by a group openly committed to Israel’s destruction.

Israel’s government (across security assessments from COGAT and political leadership) maintains that the policy follows ongoing security evaluations. Hamas remains in power in Gaza, has repeatedly vowed to repeat October 7-style attacks, and diverts resources to military infrastructure rather than civilian economy. Polls and statements from Palestinian leadership show significant support for violence against Israelis in relevant populations.

Israeli employers in construction, agriculture, and services have pushed to bring workers back for economic reasons (lower wages, familiarity), but the government and much of the public prioritize preventing another intelligence or infiltration failure. Pre-October 7 data showed very few attacks by permit holders over many years, but that statistic is overwhelmed by the scale of the one catastrophic breach.

Israel has no legal or moral obligation to employ citizens of adversarial entities. Many countries restrict labor from high-risk areas or groups.

Palestinian economic hardship is real—work in Israel was a major income source—but it stems from choices by Hamas (which governs Gaza and prioritizes tunnels and rockets over jobs) and the Palestinian Authority, plus rejection of peace offers over decades.

The New Yorker piece emphasizes Palestinian suffering and questions the security rationale with economist input. It gives less weight to the October 7 planning context or Hamas’s role in the status quo. newyorker.com

The restrictions are rooted in the demonstrated exploitation of the pre-October 7 work system for reconnaissance that aided the massacre planning. Israel’s calculus is that its citizens’ safety outweighs providing jobs across the border to a population governed by groups that seek its elimination.