Last update - 00:00 18/02/2008
From war-torn homes to IDF bases and the streets of TA
By Nurit Wurgaft
Five men sit on the lawn at Levinsky Park in South Tel Aviv. One takes off his shoes and washes his feet with great care, using water from a bottle. Another man shaves his friend, using plain soap. After the shave, the friend uses what's left of the water to wash his face and wet his hair.
The five fled from Eritrea and reached Israel on Friday. Unlike others captured by soldiers at the border, the Eritreans said they were not arrested.
"We walked for another six hours after crossing the Israeli border, and only then did we get to a police station," one said.
The men said that police officers gave them water and food, and after allowing them to rest for a while, took them by bus to Be'er Sheva. Since Shabbat had begun, they took taxicabs to Tel Aviv, paying for the fare themselves.
Some 400 asylum seekers like these came to Levinsky Park, near the Central Bus Station, over the past weekend, after being released from the army bases where they were detained.
Two men who fled Darfur said they were held for 12 days at an army base, together with many other asylum seekers. Another counted 107 asylum seekers who were kept until last weekend at his base. They say they were free to move about the base and were not held under prison conditions.
According a few of those who reached Tel Aviv, every night for the past two weeks dozens or hundreds of captured refugees were brought to the bases, and most of them were taken away the following day. The bus that took them to Be'er Sheva on Friday also let most of them off in groups of 10 along the way, so that only they and seven Eritreans ended up remaining on the bus by the time they arrived in Be'er Sheva. Yesterday it emerged that many of those let off the bus along the way, all southern Sudanese, were taken to Ketziot Prison.
Yesterday the park looked like a refugee camp: People were brushing their teeth by the water fountain, several were asleep on the lawn, others were sharing falafel sandwiches they had bought, and everywhere was the stench coming from the chemical toilet placed there by the Tel Aviv municipality.
One Darfurian removed from his back pocket a faded piece of paper he got from the UN at a refugee camp in Chad. Among the Eritreans are some who fled to Sudan and then fled from there after the Sudanese police began hunting them down and deporting them.
Last Wednesday the head of the Interior Ministry's Population Administration, Yaakov Ganot, announced at a meeting attended by other ministry officials and representatives of refugee rights groups that the Israel Defense Forces was holding 460 infiltrators. However, an army official said yesterday that he was not familiar with that figure, and that over the weekend some 300 infiltrators had been caught, some of whom were transferred, after examination, to the relevant authorities, and those for whom no solution was found were released.
The IDF Spokesman's Office said that some 300 infiltrators had been captured last weekend, and that hundreds had also been caught earlier in the week, some of whom were transferred to the Israel Prisons Service and others of whom were released.
Regarding the government's earlier decision to give 600 refugees from Darfur legal status as temporary residents in Israel, the Interior Ministry said that applications have so far not exceeded the quota, and if they do, then another government decision will be required.