JERUSALEM: Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said yesterday he aims to repatriate tens of thousands of African illegal migrants and that the inflow into Israel from the Sinai peninsula has been brought to a halt.
“Our aim is to repatriate tens of thousands of infiltrators now in Israel to their countries of origin,” he said, adding Israel had been in contact with several African governments.
“After having been confronted by the threat of hundreds of thousands (of illegal migrants), this month not a single infiltrator has reached cities in Israel,” he said, quoted in a government statement.
“We have reached this result over the past several months, and next month we will have completed the construction of the fence on the border with the Sinai,” facing Egypt, he said.
Israel began constructing the fence in late 2010 to stem the influx of thousands of illegal migrants through the porous border, which has also been a major drug and human trafficking route into Israel.
“Now we are moving on to the next stage, the repatriation of the infiltrators already here.”
Interior Minister Eli Yishai had warned in August that Sudanese illegals who did not leave the country by October 15 would be detained, held in camps and deported.
Israel already began expelling South Sudanese in June, after Yishai ruled they were no longer at risk in their newly independent homeland.
An Israeli court the same month gave the green light for plans to repatriate around 2,000 illegal migrants from the Ivory Coast.
Rising tensions over the growing number of illegal immigrants exploded into violence in May when a protest in south Tel Aviv turned ugly, with demonstrators smashing African-run shops and property, chanting “Blacks out!”
Meanwhle, Human Rights Watch (HRW) said yesterday that Palestinian militants violated the laws of war by launching rockets at Israeli cities from the Gaza Strip during last month’s fighting. The New York-based group also said that militant organisations in the territory, which is ruled by the Islamist movement Hamas, put Palestinian civilians in harm’s way by firing the rockets from within densely populated areas.
Hamas spokesman Sami Abu Zuhri dismissed the charges: “This report is biased because it equates a nuclear-armed country using all means of aggression against civilians and a people subject to the occupation who are defending themselves against Israeli violations of international accords amid the silence of the international community,” he said.
Israel launched a November 14-21 air offensive with the declared aim of ending persistent rocket barrages on its territory.
Medical officials in the Gaza Strip said some 170 Palestinians, mostly civilians, were killed in the hostilities. HRW said two of the Palestinian dead were apparently hit by rockets that fell short of their intended targets in Israel.
Six Israelis, including two soldiers, were killed in rocket strikes, the Israeli police and military said.
“Palestinian armed groups made clear in their statements that harming civilians was their aim. There is simply no legal justification for launching rockets at populated areas,” HRW said in a report.AFP
