Israel offers cash $1,200 each & airplane ticket to Africans to leave

African migrants line up at Soup Levinsky to receive a hot meal that is distributed by Israelis in Levinsky Park in south Tel Aviv, Israel, 04 June 2012. With some 60,000 Africans having crossed into Israel in the past years, Israel is building a huge detention center, a wall along the Egyptian border and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu recently instructed the Defense Ministry to erect tent cities to hold African migrants.  EPA/JIM HOLLANDER

About 60 000 Africans have trekked through Egypt and other Muslim countries to reach Israel over the past few years. Many are looking for work, while others are seeking political asylum.

Cash, plane ticket
A Jerusalem court has ruled that some 4 500 migrants, mostly from South Sudan, Ivory Coast and Mali, are to be expelled.Interior ministry spokesperson Sabine Hadad said on Friday that those who willingly leave within the next week or two will receive cash incentives of $1 200 and a plane ticket. She said that otherwise, they will be expelled.
Earlier, Interior Minister Eli Yishai said it would take months to expel them. He told Israel Radio that that a tent city and holding facilities are being built for other migrants who are living in major population centres. He said they will receive food and health care and will have good living conditions there.
Because many are from Sudan, an enemy of Israel, and Eritrea, a country with a flawed human rights record, the line between refugees and economic migrants is blurred. Therefore, Israel has quietly allowed most migrants from those two countries to stay without processing their asylum applications.
Jewish character
Yishai warned that an influx of migrants could destroy Israel’s Jewish character. In some places, entire neighbourhoods are inhabited by migrants. Tensions are high in southern Tel Aviv, where a series of rapes, robberies and violence have been blamed on the Africans, sparking protests.
Police say the crime rate among the migrants is lower than for Israelis.
Court decisions are pending regarding migrants from other African countries, mainly Eritrea and Sudan. The migrants infiltrate Israel’s porous border with Egypt, exploiting the widespread lawlessness in Egypt’s Sinai peninsula.
Israel is erecting a barrier along the roughly 200km border with Egypt. But the migrants continue to arrive at a rate of about 1 000 a month, and some report being raped, tortured and extorted by the Arab Bedouins who smuggle them through.


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