A brief pursuit by Border Police of a truck that fled the Mizmoriyah checkpoint near the Sur Baher neighborhood on Jerusalem’s southeastern outskirts revealed 18 Arabs hiding in a double wall of the truck’s undercarriage who were attempting to cross illegally, according to Israel Police.

Police caught up with the vehicle in al-Muntar in Judea east of Jerusalem, after the driver damaged infrastructure at the checkpoint and struck two civilian vehicles. The driver fled on foot, but the remaining 18 passengers were detained and taken for questioning.

Arabs keep trying to sneak across the border for employment opportunities. After the Oct. 7, 2023, Hamas-led attack on Israel, Israel revoked more than 115,000 work permits; wages are also twice as high in Israel as they are in the disputed territories. As a result of the revocation of work permits and tightened security in the form of increased checkpoints and restrictions on movement, unemployment among Arabs in Judea and Samaria has soared to 30 percent.

At the same time, a persistent high demand for manual labor within Israel, especially in construction and agriculture, has created an incentive for Arabs to exploit the gaps in checkpoints that remain despite tight security.

For Israelis, this presents a severe security threat, because any gap exploited by laborers seeking economic relief can also be exploited by terrorists seeking to kill as many Israeli civilians as possible.