Date: Wednesday, 25 April 2018
Israel told the top court earlier it will stop holding deportation hearings and any previous decisions on deportations have now been nullified
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu attends a ceremony for the signing of a housing agreement in Sderot, Israel April 9, 2018. REUTERS/Amir Cohen Credit\ AMIR COHEN/ REUTERSA statement released by the Prime Minister's Office after the dramatic announcement to the High Court of Justice said that "after the third countries refused to accept the infiltrators under the conditions Israel demanded, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Interior Minister Arye Dery agreed to immediately reopen the detention facilities for the infiltrators, move to advance new legislation [to circumnavigate High Court rulings] and promote additional measures to solve the problem."
The statement likely refers to the Holot detention facility in the Negev Desert in southern Israel and the nearby Saharonim Prison. Holot, which held thousands of asylum-seeking Eritrean and Sudanese men since it first opened in 2013, was officially shut down on March 14 while Saharonim was shut in early April.
The Prime Minister's Office released a statement saying that the state would stop holding pre-deportation hearings for the asylum seekers and that any previous decisions on the matter are now nullified.
A coalition of human rights groups petitioned the High Court of Justice last month to demand that those who face deportation be allowed to see the agreements Israel allegedly signed with Rwanda or Uganda, the countries to which it planned to deport them. Both African nations deny the existence of such deals.
At pre-deportation hearings, a state representative tells asylum seekers that they must leave for “a safe third country under the agreements Israel has with both countries,” even though the agreement with Rwanda collapsed months ago and efforts to negotiate a revised agreement with Uganda have failed.
The signatories of the letter, all Democrats, said they were “heartened” by the agreement and “disappointed” by Netanyahu’s swift decision to retract it on April 3 following strong pressure from the right wing in Israel.
According to the UN deal, Israel would have sent as many as 16,500 asylum seekers to be resettled in Western countries while allowing a similar number to remain in Israel until a better solution is found.
Israel negotiated the UN agreement following the collapse of a prior arrangement it reportedly had with Rwanda to deport thousands of asylum seekers there.
After he canceled the UN deal, Netanyahu signaled that he is once again examining ways of forcibly deporting asylum seekers to an unspecified “third country” in Africa – most likely Uganda. But a special envoy sent there to negotiate a deal returned last week without signing any sort of agreement with the country.
There are approximately 39,000 Eritrean and Sudanese citizens now in Israel. According to Population and Immigration Authority figures, over the past three and a half years, some 1,750 people have left Israel for Uganda. In 2015, 485 asylum seekers left, in 2016, 506 people left and in 2017, the figure was 630. So far this year, 128 people have left.
