With Palestinian laborers shut out of Israel, Indian workers line up for jobs there

Indian men line up at a registration office set up in a technical college in the northern Indian city of Lucknow, where they hope to sign up to work in Israel. (Diaa Hadid/NPR)

LUCKNOW, India — A devotional song blares from a Hindu temple as dozens of men cram in line for the chance to register for work in Israel. But mostly what the men hear are orders. An official directs them to a warehouse-style waiting room if they haven't already signed up. As the men jostle to get to the head of the line, a security guard orders them to sit down on the ground. "Do it like gentlemen," the guard orders. "No need for mischief!"

This unruly line outside a vocational training center in the northern Indian city of Lucknow is more than 2,700 miles away from Gaza — and it spotlights the many ways the war between Israel and Hamas is affecting life around the world.