Israel: Iron fist against African immigrants and refugees
Interior Minister (SHAS) wants their mass expulsion
On Friday, an Israeli court approved the expulsion of the South Sudanese community, which numbers around 1,500 people across Israel. "In future, I hope that we will also be able to expel the Eritreans and the Sudanese," Yishai said. There are at least 35,000 Eritreans in the country and 15,000 Sudanese. "We want to defend the Jewish and Zionist nature of Israel," Yishai added.
Special units from Israel's police have been trying to seek out members of the South-Sudanese community since yesterday. Around 80 arrests were made on the first day of the operation, particularly in Eilat, where many have worked for some time in the tourism industry and are therefore easy to identify. Local sources said that police forces arrested the immigrants inn their homes, in the hotels where they were working and in some cases on the streets. The men were put in prison in Ketziot (in the Negev, close to the Gaza Strip) and women in the nearby prison of Saharonim. Their expulsion should be complete in the next few days. The aggressive nature of the arrests has been criticised by civil rights groups.
In Arad, which is home to a few hundred South Sudanese, the Israeli Interior Ministry has distributed forms offering a modest cash fee to immigrants who agree to leave Israel "spontaneously", helping them to tackle basic needs once they return home. The Ynet website says that dozens of people have filled in the forms, thereby agreeing to leave Israel for good.
The campaign launched by the Interior Ministry has caused no shortage of apprehension in areas with a significant presence of Africans without permits, particularly in the southern suburbs of Tel Aviv. In the last few weeks, there have been a number of hostile protests in the working-class areas led by right-wing politicians, who claim that illegal immigrants are responsible for a wave of violence and crime. The Likud MP, Miri Reghev, even claimed that the immigrants now "represent a tumour" within Israel. A few days later, in a working-class area of Jerusalem, unknown individuals attempted to set fire to a house inhabited by Eritrean immigrants, who miraculously escaped. The words "Out of the area" were found daubed on a nearby wall.
Wednesday, 13 June 2012
(ANSAmed) - TEL AVIV, JUNE 11 - Israel is beginning to adopt an iron fist against African immigrants without residence permits in the country. Thousands of Africans stayed at home today as "Operation Go Back Home" began in the streets of a number of Israeli towns, the Red Sea tourist resort of Eilat in particular. The new policy, which has been ordered by the Interior Minister Eli Yishai (from the Orthodox SHAS party), will see the gradual expulsion of tens of thousands of Africans who have entered Israel illegally after crossing the Egyptian Sinai.
Posts
