Jerusalem: Israel on Monday cancelled the planned expulsions of tens of thousands of African migrants, saying it reached a deal with the United Nations to resettle half of them in Western nations and allow the rest to remain in the country.
The surprise announcement offered a solution to an issue that has divided Israel for the past decade, and scrapped a plan that had been widely maligned at home and abroad, even by some of Israel’s closest supporters.
“It’s a good agreement,” Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu told reporters. “It enables us to solve this problem in a way that serves, protects the interests of the state of Israel and gives a solution to the residents of southern Tel Aviv and other suburbs, and also for the people who came into Israel.”
Israel is home to roughly 35,000 African migrants, most of them from Eritrea, which has one of the world’s worst human rights records, or war-torn Sudan. The migrants say they are asylum-seekers fleeing danger and persecution, while Israeli leaders have claimed they are merely job seekers.
The Africans started arriving 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. But Israel has struggled with what to do with those already in the country, alternating between plans to deport them and offering them menial jobs in hotels and local municipalities.
Thousands of the migrants concentrated in poor suburbs in south Tel Aviv, an area that has become known as “Little Africa.” Their presence has sparked tensions with working-class Jewish residents, who have complained of rising crime and pressed the government to take action.
Read the full article at the Sydney Morning Herald.