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African migrants hold large Tel Aviv rally, demand better treatment
Tens of thousands of African migrants gathered in Tel Aviv’s Rabin Square yesterday to protest the opening of a new detention facility in southern Israel and to demand that their asylum requests be processed.
It is estimated that more than 50,000 African migrants have entered Israel illegally since 2006 via the country’s border with Egypt, although the flow of has been brought to an almost total halt with the recent completion of a new border fence. Most have arrived from Eritrea or Sudan and many claim to be fleeing persecution, although the Israeli government says that most are economic migrants. However, the vast majority have not had their status determined and instead have temporary permits.
Police estimated that as many as 30,000 African protestors, joined by Israeli supporters, marched in poignant silence yesterday from Levinsky Park in southern Tel Aviv, the epicentre of the African migrant community, to Rabin Square, where they gathered under the slogan “No more prison, no more deportation. We are refugees, we need asylum.” Many of the protestors have also launched a three-day strike and have vowed to stay home from jobs, typically in service industries.
The protestors demanded that Israeli authorities process their asylum requests and applications for refugee status. They also protested the policy of arresting and holding migrants, who have entered the country illegally, for apparent indefinite periods at the new Holot open detention facility in the southern Negev region.
Israel’s Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu issued an uncompromising message yesterday, saying “We absolutely stopped the infiltration into Israel and now we are determined to remove from Israel the illegal work infiltrators that entered Israel.” An estimated 2,600 migrants agreed to leave Israel for their country of origin in 2013. Meanwhile, Tel Aviv mayor Ron Huldai called on the government to institute a clear policy and accused leaders of ignoring the difficulties faced by both migrants and veteran residents of southern Tel Aviv, the area in which most migrants have settled.