African asylum-seekers go on hunger strike after Israeli crackdown

Around 1,000 people, mostly from Eritrea and Sudan, say they are being subjected to "inhuman and unlimited" detention at camp on the Egyptian border.

JERUSALEM // Hundreds of illegal African immigrants began a hunger strike on Monday after Israeli police forcibly broke up a sit-in they were staging along the Egyptian border.

Around 1,000 Africans, mostly from Eritrea and Sudan, had marched on Friday to the border and set up a makeshift camp to protest against their “inhuman and unlimited” detention at the Holot detention camp.

Israel opened Holot in the southern Negev desert last year as part of a crackdown on illegal immigrants, with the facility open by day but locked down at night.

The demonstrators have said Holot is akin to a prison and have also slammed what they said was Israel’s failure to process their asylum requests.

They are calling on the UN refugee agency (UNHCR) to intervene to allow them to immigrate to a third country.

But on Sunday evening, police and immigration officials “violently” broke up the border encampment and took the demonstrators to Saharonim, another detention camp for African immigrants, the demonstrators said in a statement.

“We have been taken to Saharonim prison. Some of us have injuries including to the face and limbs. In protest of this violence, and our ongoing imprisonment we have now started a hunger strike,” it said.

“We call on UNHCR to find an urgent solution for this situation and to protect our rights as people who have come to Israel to seek asylum and shelter.”

Sabine Hadad, a spokeswoman for the Israeli immigration authority, confirmed that 779 people had been evacuated during the arrest operation.

“There were clashes with a small minority of demonstrators,” she said. “Five of them and five police were very lightly injured.

“Each one will be brought before a committee to explain why they violated the rules,” she said, indicating the inmates are required to sign in twice during the day, and to spend the night in the facility.

“They could face up to three months imprisonment for this offence,” she said.

Under legislation passed by parliament in December 2013, Israel can detain illegal immigrants for up to a year without trial, a move the UNHCR said could be in breach of international law.

The law was the latest in a series of measures aimed at cracking down on the numbers of Africans entering the country illegally, which Israel says poses a threat to the state’s Jewish character.

* Agence France-Press