Skip To Content
JEWISH. INDEPENDENT. NONPROFIT.
Breaking News

Africans Returned to Israel Detention After Protest

Hundreds of African migrants gathered outside the Prime Minister’s Office in Jerusalem protesting Israel’s policy of detaining asylum seekers were put on buses back to a detention facility.

The protesters, holding signs reading “I didn’t choose to be a refugee,” “we are in danger, not dangerous” and “you were strangers in the land of Egypt,” launched their demonstration on Tuesday after leaving the Holot detention facility a day earlier.

Police and government officials had threatened to arrest the protesters if they caused disturbances. At the end of the demonstration they were forced by immigration officials on buses taking them back to the detention facility.

About 150 of the migrants had spent Monday night at Kibbutz Nachshon near Jerusalem, where they were provided with food and clothing after walking from the Holot facility in the Negev Desert to Beersheva.

Volunteers had brought them to the kibbutz after immigration officials refused to allow the migrants to board buses for Jerusalem. They walked from the kibbutz to Jerusalem on Tuesday.

The Holot residence is called an “open facility,” with detainees free to leave during the day and with mandatory check-in at night. They are not allowed to hold jobs.

Nearly 350 of the facility’s 484 residents, who were transferred there late last week, have not returned to the detention center in recent days, Haaretz reported.

Some of the protesters have been on a hunger strike since being brought to Holot.

The Knesset last week approved an amendment to the Migrant Law to allow Israeli officials to hold African migrants in prison for up to a year without trial and in the open detention facility indefinitely.

Israel’s Supreme Court had ruled unconstitutional the law allowing officials to hold migrants without trial for three years.

A message from our CEO & publisher Rachel Fishman Feddersen

I hope you appreciated this article. Before you go, I’d like to ask you to please support the Forward’s award-winning, nonprofit journalism during this critical time.

We’ve set a goal to raise $260,000 by December 31. That’s an ambitious goal, but one that will give us the resources we need to invest in the high quality news, opinion, analysis and cultural coverage that isn’t available anywhere else.

If you feel inspired to make an impact, now is the time to give something back. Join us as a member at your most generous level.

—  Rachel Fishman Feddersen, Publisher and CEO

With your support, we’ll be ready for whatever 2025 brings.

Republish This Story

Please read before republishing

We’re happy to make this story available to republish for free, unless it originated with JTA, Haaretz or another publication (as indicated on the article) and as long as you follow our guidelines. You must credit the Forward, retain our pixel and preserve our canonical link in Google search.  See our full guidelines for more information, and this guide for detail about canonical URLs.

To republish, copy the HTML by clicking on the yellow button to the right; it includes our tracking pixel, all paragraph styles and hyperlinks, the author byline and credit to the Forward. It does not include images; to avoid copyright violations, you must add them manually, following our guidelines. Please email us at [email protected], subject line “republish,” with any questions or to let us know what stories you’re picking up.

We don't support Internet Explorer

Please use Chrome, Safari, Firefox, or Edge to view this site.