Do unto others: Israeli gov’t approves plan to build a detention camp for African refugees

On Friday, 19 November, Yedioth Aharonoth published a shocking feature story called “Hell in the middle of the desert.” Journalist Einat Fishbein reports on camps in the Sinai desert, where refugees from Sudan and Eritrea who are trying to flee to Israel are held by Bedouin smugglers and tortured. Survivors describe women beaten and systematically gang-raped over days and weeks; others were burned with white-hot iron rods; subjected to electric shocks; or held for days in tiny, airless containers until they lost consciousness from lack of oxygen. Many died. Hundreds of female rape survivors have undergone abortions in Israel, with the help of Physicians for Human Rights (PHCR). One survivor describes being forced to call a friend in Sudan and beg for ransom money while her captors beat her until she was unrecognizable. Then they took her away and raped her.

In Tel Aviv, one sees African refugees concentrated around the Central Bus Station, where they live. Peek into any restaurant kitchen and you’ll see at least one black man, whose job it is to wash dishes, haul out the garbage and clean the floors. Some of them earn enough for food and clothing, but not shelter. So they sleep outdoors. You can see them at night in Levinsky Park – dozens of men, sleeping in neat rows on thin foam mattresses.

How desperate these people must be, to risk torture or death as they travel from Eritrea to Israel by foot, putting themselves at the mercy of smugglers, just so they can get to Israel, where they do the dirtiest work that nobody else wants, so they can earn enough to live. Refugees are not treated particularly well in Israel. Often they are picked up by army desert patrols and taken to Ketziot Miliary Prison, where they are kept for weeks or months before being released  with refugee papers and left to fend for themselves in the gritty, drug-infested streets of south Tel Aviv. They have few rights, receive fewer benefits and rely on human rights NGOs like PHCR,  the Hotline for Migrant Workers and ACRI to help them with access to basic services, and to advocate for them. But at least they have some freedom of movement and autonomy.

Now the Israeli government plans to build a huge detention camp in the Negev desert and house around 10,000 refugees there, rather than allow them to live in Israel’s cities and work for a living.

In remarks to the cabinet, Netanyahu said thousands of migrants who have entered Israel mainly through Egypt in past years would be housed at a special holding facility, due to built in Israel’s southern Negev desert.

“We must stop the mass entry of illegal migrant workers because of the very serious threat to the character and future to the State of Israel,” he said, adding Israelis who gave them work would face severe fines to make their employment not viable.

The Negev Regional Council opposes the camp. They are concerned about the potential damage to the environment.

But what about the people? I really find it incredible that a nation still traumatized by the 1938 Evian Conference and its repercussions, can avert its eyes as these traumatized, desperate refugees are made to languish in a big, open air Guantanamo for Africans.

ACRI, PHCR and the Migrant Workers’ Hotline think the government’s plan is a disgrace for Israel.

Responding to Netanyahu’s plan later Sunday, Physicians for Human Rights severely criticized the cabinet’s decision:”That victims of torture, rape, war and genocide are to be imprisoned indefinitely, without the supervision of a judicial authority and against the international treaty on the protection of refugees is a stain of shame on the State of Israel.”

“This plan will not only fail in stopping refugees from crossing over from the Sinai,” the group said, but “will exacerbate the plight of the refugees, damaging their health and further hurting their already unstable mental state.”

“We call upon the government of Israel to halt the turbulence that had taken hold of it, and weigh humane solutions for the absorption of refugees in a profound and civilized manner,” the rights group added.

The Hotline for Migrant Workers and the Association for Civil Rights and Israel also issued a joint statement following the cabinet’s decision, saying that it was unclear “in light of the severe conditions which asylum seekers currently undergo in the Ketziot Military Prison Camp, how Israel can erect a much larger detention center without causing a humanitarian disaster and a disgrace.”

Well. Are we really going to let this happen?