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BETHLEHEM (Ma’an) -- Israeli police detained 47 undocumented Palestinians in the southern Israeli city of Rahat in the Negev region, according to Israeli police spokeswoman Luba al-Samri, who said in a statement Tuesday that the raids were carried out by 250 Israeli police officers, special forces, and border guards.

During the campaign, Israeli police also detained four people for employing the Palestinian workers, as well as five homeowners who employed Palestinians as construction workers to build their houses.
The raids also targeted 37 Palestinians who Israeli police said were “wanted” by Israel.

Five rifles were seized, and three suspects were detained for selling drugs during a sting operation by an undercover Israeli police officer.

Tens of thousands of Palestinian workers are forced to seek a living by working in Israel due to crippling unemployment in the occupied West Bank, as rights groups have stated that the growth of an independent Palestinian economy has been stifled under the ongoing Israeli military occupation.

Israeli authorities have imposed a massive crackdown on undocumented workers in Israel over the past year, which initially surged following a deadly attack in the Israeli port of Jaffa in March carried out by a Palestinian who had illegally crossed the border out of the occupied West Bank.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said in March that since a wave of violence began last fall -- that to date has left some 36 Israelis and 239 Palestinians killed -- “a large proportion of (Palestinian) attackers were present in Israel illegally or infiltrated into Israel illegally.”

However, few Palestinians attackers were in fact workers in Israel, and the recent crackdown on undocumented workers has been condemned by rights groups as a political game, unlikely to affect the violence, yet economically harmful to both Palestinians and Israelis.