Jerusalem - Israel said on Wednesday it
would pay thousands of African migrants living illegally in the
country to leave, threatening them with jail if they are caught
after the end of March.
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, in public remarks at a
cabinet meeting on the payment programme, said a barrier Israel
completed in 2013 along its border with Egypt had effectively
cut off a stream of "illegal infiltrators" from Africa after
some 60 000 crossed the desert frontier.
The vast majority came from Eritrea and Sudan and many said
they fled war and persecution as well as economic hardship, but
Israel treats them as economic migrants.
The plan launched this week offers African migrants a $3 500 (R43 000) payment from the Israeli government and a free air ticket to
return home or go to "third countries", which rights groups
identified as Rwanda and Uganda.
"We have expelled about 20 000 and now the mission is to get
the rest out," Netanyahu said.
An immigration official, speaking on condition of anonymity,
said there are some 38,000 migrants living illegally in Israel,
and some 1,420 are being held in two detention centres.
"Beyond the end of March, those who leave voluntarily will
receive a significantly smaller payment that will shrink even
more with time, and enforcement measures will begin," the
official said, referring to incarceration.
Some have lived for years in Israel and work in low-paying
jobs that many Israelis shun. Israel has granted asylum to fewer
than one percent of those who have applied and has a years-long
backlog of applicants.
Rights groups have accused Israel of being slow to process
African migrants' asylum requests as a matter of policy and
denying legitimate claims to the status.
Netanyahu has called the migrants’ presence a threat to
Israel’s social fabric and Jewish character, and one government
minister has referred to them as “a cancer”.
Teklit Michael, a 29-asylum seeker from Eritrea living in
Tel Aviv, said in response to the Israeli plan that paying money
to other governments to take in Africans was akin to "human
trafficking and smuggling".
"We don't know what is waiting for us (in Rwanda and
Uganda)," he told Reuters by telephone. "They prefer now to stay
in prison (in Israel) instead."
In his remarks, Netanyahu cited the large presence of
African migrants in Tel Aviv's poorer neighbourhoods, where he
said "veteran residents" - a reference to Israelis - no longer
feel safe.
"So today, we are keeping our promise to restore calm, a
sense of personal security and law and order to the residents of
south Tel Aviv and those in many other neighbourhoods," he said.