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Israel agrees to scrap plan to deport African asylum seekers Israel scraps plan to deport African asylum seekers
(about 2 hours later)
Israel has said it has agreed with the UN to scrap plans to deport African asylum seekers, and will instead resettle many in western countries. Israel has scrapped a plan to force thousands of African asylum seekers to choose between deportation and an indefinite spell in jail, striking a deal instead to resettle many in western countries including Canada, Italy and Germany.
On Monday, Benjamin Netanyahu’s office said it had reached “unprecedented understandings” with the UN refugee agency, UNHCR, under which Israel would send more than 16,000 migrants to countries willing to accept them. The prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, said Israel had reached “unprecedented understandings” with the UN refugee agency to send more than 16,000 migrants and refugees to various western countries that were willing to take them.
The deal removes the threat of forced expulsion to an unspecified destination in Africa. In exchange, Israel has indicated it will regularise the legal status of many of those remaining.
The Africans, nearly all from dictatorial Eritrea and war-torn Sudan, say they fled for their lives and faced renewed danger if they returned. Israel’s original deportation plan, which envisaged many asylum seekers being sent to third countries in Africa in exchange for cash payments, had run into serious problems including Rwanda and Uganda’s refusal to accept the refugees after they learned that the deportations could happen by force.
Israel considers the vast majority of the nearly 40,000 migrants to be jobseekers and said it has no legal obligation to accommodate them. Critics called the deportation plan unethical and a stain on Israel’s image as a refuge for Jewish migrants. The plan was temporarily halted last month by Israel’s supreme court after challenges to its legality following a demonstration by 25,000 people in Tel Aviv.
Israel said the agreement would be implemented over five years. An estimated 40,000 African migrants and refugees, mainly from Eritrea and Sudan, currently reside in Israel, many in neighbourhoods in south Tel Aviv, and they have become the focus of a long-running and often toxic political debate about their future.
The issue has struck a raw nerve in Israel and its image as a refuge for Jewish migrants. The optics of black asylum seekers accusing the country of racism turned into a public relations liability for Israel, and groups of Israeli doctors, academics, poets, Holocaust survivors, rabbis and pilots all appealed to halt the plan.
The optics of black asylum seekers accusing the country of racism has turned into a public relations liability for Israel, and groups of Israeli doctors, academics, poets, Holocaust survivors, rabbis and pilots have all appealed to halt the plan. The asylum seekers themselves including many who claim to be deserters from Eritrean military conscription have long argued it is unsafe for them return to their countries of origin, while Israel has said it has no responsibility to host them.
The Africans started moving toward Israel in 2005, after neighbouring Egypt violently quashed a refugee demonstration and word spread of safety and job opportunities in Israel. Tens of thousands crossed the porous desert border before Israel completed a barrier in 2012 that stopped the influx. Welcoming the decision to shelve the plan, the Movement to Halt the Deportation of Asylum Seekers said: “This agreement would not have happened without dozens of organisations and the contribution of numerous people.
Thousands of the migrants concentrated in neighbourhoods in south Tel Aviv, where ethnic food shops and phone card stalls line the streets, and the area has become known as “Little Africa.” This has sparked tension with the working-class Jewish residents who have been putting pressure on the government to find a solution. “Israel now has the opportunity to make amends, forge a responsible policy, place the asylum seekers around for absorption and to treat requests for asylum seriously and fix up the neighbourhoods of south Tel Aviv where tens of thousands of asylum seekers were sent.”
Condemning the deal, however, a group of residents of south Tel Aviv called it “a shame for the state of Israel”.
Many of the migrants and refugees started arriving at Israel’s southern border with Egypt after 2005. Tens of thousands crossed the desert border before Israel completed a barrier in 2012 that stopped the influx.
Netanyahu took a personal stake in a hardline approach after he made a highly publicised visit to meet Israeli residents of south Tel Aviv and promised to take action.
Speaking at press conference with Netanyahu, Israel’s interior minister, Arye Dery, said the UN would help to resettle one asylum seeker in a western country for every asylum seeker to whom Israel provided temporary residency status.
Netanyahu said: “I went to the neighbourhoods in south Tel Aviv. I saw the suffering of the Israelis living there and we said that we have to remove the problem. But because the supreme court has banned us from moving them to a country they do not want to go to, we had to find another solution.”
The left-leaning Meretz party welcomed the U-turn. “The word ‘infiltrators’ has left the lexicon. The government has finally understood the need to absorb refugees,” it said. “The international refugee crisis is real and serious, and the propagandists who tried to make it seem differently should apologise today.”
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United NationsUnited Nations
Middle East and North AfricaMiddle East and North Africa
Refugees
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