The asylum seekers, mainly from Sudan and Eritrea, entered Israel through Egypt’s Sinai Peninsula in the early and mid-2000s. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s Cabinet also approved plans to shut down the Holot migrant detention center in southern Israel and gave asylum seekers a three-month deadline to leave the country or face deportation.
The Israeli government says the African migrants are “infiltrators” and not genuine refugees. “The infiltrators will have the option to be imprisoned or leave the country,” Israel’s Public Security Ministry said in a statement.
“This removal is enabled thanks to an international agreement I achieved that enables us to remove the 40,000 remaining infiltrators without their consent. This is very important,” Netanyahu said at the start of his Cabinet meeting. “This will enable us to close down Holot and allocate some of the large funds going there to inspectors and removing more people,” the prime minister added.