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In pictures: Tel Aviv’s African migrants

Fresh uncertainties face thousands seeking a better life, as Israel launches a crackdown with a view to deport them.

African migrants receive food from local charity workers offering social services in South Tel Aviv(***)s Levinsky Park.
By Ben Piven
Published On 24 Jun 2012

Tel Aviv, Israel – The Israeli government has in recent weeks started rounding up hundreds of migrants for eventual deportation. A first batch of 127 people from South Sudan (out of some 1,500) were flown home after they had agreed to return in exchange for a free plane ticket and 1,000 euros ($1,250).

But in a hectic political climate, the Binyamin Netanyahu-led coalition government is also tasked with processing some 10,000 other Africans from countries – such as Ivory Coast, Ghana and Nigeria – which would reportedly accept deportees under some form of legal agreements. Some migrants from these countries have already been arrested in the current sweep.

Yet the biggest challenge by far is dealing with the estimated 40,000 people from Eritrea and 10,000 from Sudan (mostly from Darfur) – who cannot under international law be sent home due to the risk of persecution. Those from Sudan could face the long arm of the law for fleeing a war-torn region for Israel, an “enemy state”.

And the Eritreans, though their government has relations with Israel, would reportedly face jail time for having evaded military service – despite the fact that most are economic migrants. Some contend that they deserve political asylum for having escaped a repressive regime in Asmara.

The Israeli government is about halfway through construction of a long fence along the Egyptian border to prevent the migrants from entering along what Israeli officials have dubbed “Bedouin smuggling routes”. With several thousand reportedly streaming in each month, the government has even suggested the possibility of another fence along the Jordanian border to keep out those who cross the Gulf of Aqaba.

The current plan is to host tens of thousands of migrants in tent cities at several detention facilities, mostly in the desert near Eilat, where many migrants enter the country and where many currently reside. The bulk of African migrants live around South Tel Aviv, in poor areas of the coastal city near the central bus station – neighbourhoods such as Hatikva, Shapira and Yad Eliyahu.

Migrants, referred to as “infiltrators” by much of the country’s right-wing press – and many officials – are typically registered with three-month permits which do not legally allow them to work, even though many are involved through a tacit loophole in low-skilled labour – construction, food sector and domestic work.

Political opposition to the migrants has been most vocal from the Israeli right, from figures such as Eli Yishai, Danny Danon and Miri Regev, who notoriously labelled the Africans a “cancer”. They have claimed there is an increase in criminal acts such as rape, as well as public health concerns and a demographic risk posed by foreigners who are not of Jewish background. Evidence of such rising criminality or falling levels of public health and a causal link with African migrants is not, however, widely available.

The migrants are mostly impoverished, but many have opened up thriving small businesses that cater largely to members of their home communities – internet cafes, ethnic eateries and hair salons.

While the diverse black African immigrant population is lumped together by political rhetoric, the predominantly Christian and Tigriniya-speaking Eritreans do not always get along with the Arabic-speaking and Muslim Sudanese from Darfur. But Israel is geopolitically aligned with Darfur, since there is common cause against Khartoum.

Alongside rising racial tensions, there are vocal migrant advocacy groups such as the Hotline for Migrant Workers and the African Refugee Development Center.

Eritrean workers, one wearing a t-shirt advertising the Birthright Israel programme, look on in Levinsky Park as a mixed group of Israelis and Africans play in a drum circle.
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Having lived for four months with friends in Rishon Letzion, 22-year-old Mubarak from Darfur works in a supermarket. "For work, Arabic is no good," he says. "You need Hebrew."
A group of West African men play football on a paved surface inside Levinsky Park adjacent to the central bus station, seen in the background.
At the Darfur Computer Center, area residents buy electronics and receive other community services.
Migrants from Eritrea, whose flag is seen in the mirror, use internet stations to connect with family members at home and make phone calls.
Like many shopkeepers, this electronics merchant says he is wary of thieves. Pointing to the security cameras in his shop, he then asks, "But, then again, in which country do people not steal? The government should either kick them out or give them work permits."
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John Deng Gir, 39, hails from South Sudan and sells belts and shoes on Neve Sh(***)anan Street. He says he plans to accept the government(***)s 1000 euro grant and plane ticket home, along with his two Israeli-born young children who live in the southern resort city of Eilat.
The African migrant issue has come to the fore in Israeli media as the Palestinian peace process is on the back burner, and the topic of Iran has faded from the headlines.
At a cafe owned by a man from Darfur, groups of Eritreans play cards, smoke shisha and watch professional wrestling.
Some of the immigrants are assimilating and have Hebrew-speaking children. They often take jobs that Israelis do not want.
But many Israelis say the volume of African migration has become socially overwhelming, even though most live in areas also populated by other migrants, including Filipinos, Chinese and Nepalese workers.
As Israelis debate how to resolve a problem that many in the country say has boiled over, the migrant communities eke out a living and maintain cultural ties to their countries of origin through film, music and cuisine.
Eritrean workers push cases of beer past a synagogue. Many Israeli liberals are sympathetic to the plight of African migrants, but the nationalist right has stoked the flames of social controversy and warned of negative long-term implications for Zionist national identity.
Tel Aviv residents walk past a poster for a campaign with a slogan that reads "Refugee, Not Infiltrator" and features the faces and stories of African migrants who are slated to be placed in detention centres in Israel(***)s southern Negev Desert.