Himal Press 
KATHMANDU: Nepal may lose lucrative job opportunities in Israel as the Middle Eastern nation has signed an agreement with India to source workers.
Last week, Israel signed an agreement with India to source 15,000 workers for its construction and caregiving sectors.
Indian media outlets, citing the National Skill Development Corporation, have reported that Israel will recruit 15,000 workers from India within three months and will soon begin the worker selection process.
A high-ranking official from the Ministry of Labor, Employment, and Social Security revealed that Israel has indicated it may not take the previously selected Nepali workers after deciding to recruit Indian workers. The official explained that Israel quickly reached a labor agreement with India due to problems with the selection process in Nepal and delays in sending workers according to the labor agreement.
“It appears that Israel preferred Indian workers due to the lengthy selection process and issues with fraudulent documents,” the official said
Although Israel’s Population and Immigration Authority (PIBA) had already selected 2,204 Nepali workers through a lottery system, the selection process has come to a grinding halt due to fraudulent documents submitted by the applicants.
Gurudatta Subedi, the spokesperson for the Department of Foreign Employment, said that the department has launched an investigation against applicants who submitted fake documents. The process of sending selected workers to Israel will resume once the investigation is complete, he added. “We are sending workers to Israel according to the labor agreement. We will continue to send workers through the same process in the future as well. Currently, an investigation into fraudulent documents is underway,” Subedi said.
Israel has already recruited 10,000 Indian workers for the agricultural sector. Following the Israel-Palestine conflict in Gaza last October, Israel began the process of replacing 90,000 Palestinians with workers from Nepal, India and Bhutan.
