Every morning, hours before dawn, around 30,000 Palestinian laborers
make their way from the occupied West Bank, where they live, and enter
Israel. These workers, desperate to keep their jobs, arrive at the
checkpoints hours early, sleeping on concrete on the Israeli side of the
checkpoint they make it through with time to spare.

Workers say
they work in Israel for a variety of reason, but most point to a lack
of opportunity, high unemployment and low wages in the occupied West
Bank. West Bank Palestinian workers in Israel make an average of around
$65 a day, more than double the average daily wage in the West Bank.

However,
with a high demand for work permits, which are only granted to a
fraction of applicants, workers have no job security, creating
dangerously helpless situations for thousands. With the onslaught of
recent violence, things have only gotten worse for these men urgently
trying to make a living for their families.

Abed Abu Shierra
knows the men who cross through the Bethlehem 300 checkpoint well,
getting to know thousands of faces as he serves them coffee on their way
through every morning.

"It started to get worse for people
being stuck like this at the start of this new Intifada," Abu Shierra
explains to Mondoweiss. "Before the situation was a little bit better."

Video by Sheren Khalel and Abed Al Qaisi