Israelis protest deportation of Sudanese asylum seekers

Israel’s hard asylum policy against African migrants has recently been expanded to the forced deportation of African – including Sudanese – asylum seekers to Uganda and Rwanda. Recent protests in Tel Aviv have grown in size, as not only migrants but also Israelis demand the government to stop the plan.

Last month, the legislative branch of the Israeli government approved an amendment to the so-called “Infiltrator’s Law”, mandating the closure of the Holot detention facility and the forced deportations of Eritrean and Sudanese migrants and asylum seekers. The deportations would start in March.

There are approximately 38,000 African migrants and asylum seekers in Israel, according to the Interior Ministry. About 72 percent are Eritrean and 20 percent are Sudanese, and the vast majority arrived between 2006 and 2012.

The protests in Tel Aviv aimed against the deportation of African asylum seekers in the past days have attracted wide attention after more than 1,000 doctors and medical staff signed petitions. Pilots of El Al in Israel have refused to fly the planned deported African asylum seekers and refugees back to Uganda or Rwanda, the countries where Israel wants to transfer the Africans to.

Also a group of Israeli Holocaust survivors have spoken out against the controversial legislation that passes their expulsion, and urged Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to stop the deportation. Last Thursday, in a letter sent to the prime minister, 36 Holocaust survivors called on Netanyahu to make a “historic decision” and reverse the controversial deportation plan.

Rwanda's government has continued to deny that is had reached an agreement with Israel on accepting thousands of asylum seekers slated to be deported.

Locking up asylum seekers

Human Rights Watch (HRW) reported that there were 27,018 Eritreans and 7,731 Sudanese in Israel as of March 2, 2017, according to Israel’s Population, Immigration and Borders Authority. On Monday, the international human rights organisation called on the Israeli government to abandon its new asylum and detention policy.

“In the latest chapter of its longstanding quest to dodge its refugee protection duties, Israel is threatening to lock up thousands of asylum seekers who refuse to leave [for Rwanda or Uganda],” said Gerry Simpson, associate refugee director at Human Rights Watch.

The voluntary departure plan might result in the indefinite detention of thousands of Eritrean and Sudanese men in Israel, whom are named “infiltrators” by government authorities. It promises $3,500 to those who agree to leave; less if they leave voluntarily after March.

Grown hostility

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Sunday said the tens of thousands of Africans who are living in Israel illegally are not legitimate refugees or asylum seekers, but instead are economic migrants. In response more than 1,000 Eritrean asylum seekers gathered outside of the Rwandan embassy in Herzilya the next day, to protest the planned forced deportations. They were joined by dozens of Israelis.

In 2013, Israel sealed off its border with Egypt and implemented a raft of policies aimed at making life more difficult for asylum seekers already in Israel. Then it began secretly pressuring Eritreans and Sudanese to leave for unnamed third countries, which investigators of Foreign Policy found to be Rwanda and Uganda in mid-2017.

For decades after its founding in 1948, Israel welcomed refugees from outside the Jewish faith. The country was an early signatory to the 1951 Refugee Convention. In 2007, then-Prime Minister Ehud Olmert echoed Begin’s act when he granted temporary residency permits to nearly 500 Sudanese asylum-seekers. But Israeli authorities soon became overwhelmed by the numbers of foreign nationals. As the government struggled to accommodate the newcomers, many languished in poor and overcrowded neighborhoods in southern Tel Aviv, and tensions turned into hostility.

Related:

‘Darfur asylum seekers to be treated as holocaust survivors’: Israeli minister (December 8 2014) 

‘Israel forces asylum seekers from Sudan, Eritrea to leave’: HRW (September 10, 2014)