Interior Minister Moshe Arbel on Monday admitted that Israel is unable to handle the volume of requests for asylum because there is not enough staff available to review the paperwork.
Speaking to the Ynet news site days after unprecedented clashes in south Tel Aviv between opposing groups of Eritrean migrants, Arbel said while Israel recognizes that some asylum seekers are in immediate danger, very few requests are approved.
“This is due to… a tremendous lack of manpower,” the minister said, adding that those who carry out the background checks involved in processing such requests need to be “people with skill and knowledge of languages.”
“The salary is an average of NIS 6,500 ($1,703) per month,” Arbel pointed out. “People with knowledge and abilities do not take these positions.”
He said his ministry had appealed to the Finance Ministry to “approve us paying a normal and proper salary to people who really do very hard work” and also to budget the required funds.
On Saturday, at least 170 people were wounded, including police officers, in hours-long clashes in south Tel Aviv between migrant supporters and opponents of Eritrea’s government. Police responded to the riots with live fire, leaving dozens hospitalized. Several officers were also hospitalized with wounds sustained in the incident.
Eritrean protesters clash with Israeli riot police in Tel Aviv, Israel, Saturday, Sept. 2, 2023. (AP/Ohad Zwigenberg)
Arbel said the recent outbreak of violence had highlighted the somewhat dormant issue, which he hopes will lead to it being resolved.
The minister also said it was “absurd” some of the Eritrean migrants support the regime in their home country, but nevertheless made their way to Israel. “That is a distorted situation.”
Arbel said those suspected of being involved in the violence will face criminal proceedings and then will be held under administrative detention, which holds a lower evidentiary bar for detention. The state will then seek to have them expelled.
Around 50 Eritrean nationals are being held, with National Security Minister Itamar Ben Gvir pushing for further “administrative” arrests, Hebrew media reported widely.
Authorities will also work to have migrants leave of their own accord, Arbel said, noting 2,200 migrants have left the country since the beginning of the year and that the goal is to reach 3,000 by the end of year.
“It’s a good solution, which also improves their standing in the receiving countries, for example Canada, which has received many,” Arbel said.
In this Monday, June 25, 2018, file photo, Eritrean asylum seekers hold a rally in front of the Foreign Ministry in Jerusalem. (AP/Caron Creighton, File)
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu held a special ministerial committee meeting about the migrants on Sunday, arguing that migration from African countries constituted “a real threat to Israel’s character and future as a Jewish and democratic state.”
Netanyahu said the government is “seeking strong steps against rioters, including immediate deportation of those who took part.”
The Israeli right largely rejects African migrants’ claims of asylum-seeking and routinely refers to all migrants, regardless of motives and circumstances, as “infiltrators.”
Asylum-seekers have been met with antipathy by successive Israeli governments, and face an uncertain future as the state has acknowledged refugee status only in a minuscule number of cases and has engaged in ongoing efforts to make life difficult for them or to deport them outright.
Some 30,000 migrants, mostly from Sudan and Eritrea, are thought to be in the country, with many of them contending they are refugees from war and oppression. Most African migrants arrived in Israel through Egypt in 2007-2012, before Israel built a barrier along the desert border. Few migrants have arrived since that time.
Saturday’s riots broke out amid a demonstration against an official Eritrean government event marking the 30th anniversary of autocratic President Isaias Afwerki’s rise to power. Opponents of the regime, decked in blue, arrived on the scene to demonstrate against supporters, who wore red. The rallies soon devolved into violence that lasted for several hours.
