Israeli anti-immigration riots hit African neighbourhood of Tel Aviv

“There were protesters everywhere smashing shop and car windows,”
he said. “A group of about 10 or 15 boys stopped one black kid cycling
on his bike. They pulled him off and were punching and kicking him in his
head. The police just stood and watched until it got really out of control.”

Other witnesses described a gang assaulting a mother carrying a young baby so
violently that she was forced to drop her child. Others stopped shuttle
buses to search for migrant workers among their passengers.

The Israeli
police confirmed they had arrested 17 suspects involved in “a protest
against illegal African immigrants”. Extra police units were positioned
to prevent further violence in the area last night.

Peace Now, an Israeli human rights organisation, is calling for an
investigation into whether the speakers at Wednesday night’s rally,
including Knesset ministers Miri Regev, Danny Danon, Yari Levin and Michael
Ben-Ari, are guilty of incitement.

During her address, Ms Regev described illegal immigrants as a “cancer in
our society”.

Danny Danon, a member of Benjamin Netanyahu’s Likud party, wrote in a Facebook
status later the same evening: “Israel is at war. An enemy state of
infiltrators was established in Israel, and its capital is south Tel Aviv.”

According to Israeli government figures, there are currently 60,000 African
asylum seekers in Israel. The vast majority come from Eritrea and Sudan and
were smuggled into the country by foot through Israel’s southern border with
Egypt, many having been beaten and tortured by their smugglers in camps in
the Sinai en route.

Israel terms any illegal immigrant through this border an ‘infiltrator’ and
estimate 90 per cent are economic migrants coming to Israel to look for work
– a stark contrast to the figures in England and Canada, where 66 per cent
and 96 per cent of Eritreans who arrive illegally are granted refugee status.

The Israeli government currently does not deport Eritreans or Sudanese however
Yehuda Weinstein, Israel’s attorney general, will appear before the
Jerusalem District Court next week to argue that there is no longer a legal
obstacle to expelling 700 Southern Sudanese refugees. If approved, Israel
will be the first country to have reached this decision.

Defending her position on Thursday, Ms Regev insisted that while she does not
condone violence, African immigrants pose a grave demographic threat to
Israel. “Israel should adopt the US protocol of returning infiltrators
to the border within 72 hours … Jews and Israelis are scared of living in
their country,” she said.

Mr Danon’s proposition to prevent further violence was to deport the city’s
African residents ” to detention facilities and remove Africans from
population centres”.

Bracing themselves for a second round of nationalist protests on Thursday
evening, the residents of Hatikva are struggling to resume normal life.

‘TJ’ says he is among the few who has left his home following the violence: “Black
people have been too afraid to leave their homes to go to work today. Racism
in Tel Aviv is not only getting worse it’s getting out of hand and the
police are no help. We are terrified.”

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