Israel mulls migrant holding centre

An estimated 300 illegal immigrants arrived in Israel every day in 2009, Israeli officials said [File: EPA]

Israel’s cabinet is expected to vote on whether to build a facility to hold the thousands of illegal immigrants who arrive every year mainly from Africa.

The proposal, which is likely to be put to the vote on Sunday, is designed to provide a centre where the basic needs of the migrants can be met, but they will not be allowed to work, Israeli officials said.

Eyal Gabai, the director-general of the office of Binyamin Netanyahu, the prime minister, said the facility would provide the Africans with food, shelter and health care. It was aimed at trying to stem a flow of illegal migrants, which he said had topped 35,000 in the past few years.

“Israel is trying to fight a situation in which the state, its citizens, are vulnerable to infiltrators who enter with economic motives”, many of whom seek work illegally, he said in an interview with Israel Radio.

‘Not a jail’

Israeli officials have not said how many migrants already in Israel would be sent to the facility, which is expected to be built at or near the site of a former prison camp for Palestinians.

“We aren’t jailing or distancing them,” Gabai said. “They can have a good time, eat and drink. Not everyone who arrives in Israel must be allowed to work here.”

He said Israel was seeking to avoid “unreasonable action” such as deporting migrants, which could put their lives in danger.

“This is a huge issue here and one that is getting bigger month by month,” Al Jazeera’s Sherine Tadros, reporting from Jerusalem, said.

“On one hand, [Israel] can’t be sending refugees and asylum seekers back because of their legal obligations under international conventions.

“On the other hand, coming up with an asylum and immigration policy may mean having to absorb tens of thousands of these non-Jewish refugees, threatening the Jewish character of the state.”

The issue of controlling migration is controversial in Israel, a country founded on immigration after the World War Two in 1948.

Jewish newcomers

Israel welcomes Jewish newcomers, most of whom receive automatic citizenship. It has brought in tens of thousands of Ethiopian Jews, including many rescued from famine in the early 1980s.

But Israel’s Population and Immigration Authority says more than 34,000 people have crossed into the country illegally this year. In 2009, an average of 300 crossed the border every month.

Ilan Gillon, a politician in the left-wing Meretz party, has called the holding centre plan “shocking”. He urged the government to act more humanely and issue work permits to at least some of the migrants.

Most of the migrants arrive from Sudan or Eritrea by travelling through Egypt. Israel has recently begun work on a barrier along 140km of the 250km border to prevent people crossing from the Sinai desert region illegally.

The project is expected to take over a year to complete at a cost of about $370m, the Israeli defence ministry said.

A barrier that would secure the entire border still requires government approval and could see the cost of the project rise to more than $1 billion.