Last week, we spoke of bombs and ballistic missiles as a fierce air war raged between Iran and Israel. This week, the conversation turned, almost incongruously, to tourist hotspots in conflict-scarred neighbourhoods.

“The Dead Sea is beautiful,” says 50-year-old Soma Ravi from Telangana, a care-giver in a Tel Aviv suburb. “Every year, I go there and lie back, relaxing on the water’s surface without sinking. It is a good life. Why should I leave? Why should anyone leave?”

A fragile truce now holds between the two long-standing adversaries, bringing their twelve-day war to an end. Ravi has spent nearly two decades in Israel and now heads the Israel Telangana Association, representing over a thousand Telugus.

This week, he rang again, and our conversation turned to why so many Indians continue to work in war zones.

“We are familiar with bombs, so we are not scared,” he said, matter-of-factly, sledgehammering a quiet but decisive shift reshaping global labour migration. Care-givers and construction workers from India, Sri Lanka, Nepal, and Southeast Asian countries like the Philippines are increasingly moving not only to wealthy nations but also to conflict-scarred regions—Israel, Iraq, Lebanon, Libya, and Syria. These are informed choices, made by workers who weigh risk against income, duty, and family survival.

In recent days, I spoke to several Indian care-givers who chose to remain in Israel despite the option of repatriation. “Very few want to go back to India. Some students,........

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