The Israeli government has issued a notice for thousands of African migrants to leave the country or face imprisonment.<\/p>\n
The migrants will be given up to $3,500 (\u00a32,600) for leaving within the next 90 days.<\/p>\n
They will be given the option of going to their home country or third countries.<\/p>\n
If they do not leave, the Israeli authorities have threatened that they will start jailing them from April.<\/p>\n
The UN refugee agency said the controversial plan violated international and Israeli laws.<\/p>\n
The Israeli government says their return will be humane and “voluntary”.<\/p>\n
The order exempts children, elderly people, and victims of slavery and human trafficking.<\/p>\n
A spokesperson for Israel’s Population and Immigration Authority told the BBC there were currently 38,000 “infiltrators” in Israel, of whom just 1,420 were being held in detention facilities.<\/p>\n
Israel uses the term “infiltrators” to describe people who did not enter the country through an official border crossing.<\/p>\n
Many of the migrants – who are mostly from Eritrea and Sudan – say they came to Israel to seek asylum after fleeing persecution and conflict, but the authorities regard them as economic migrants.<\/p>\n
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has claimed that an unchecked influx of African migrants could threaten Israel’s Jewish character.<\/p>\n
–<\/p>\n
Source: BBC<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
The Israeli government has issued a notice for thousands of African migrants to leave the country or face imprisonment. The migrants will be given up to $3,500 (\u00a32,600) for leaving within the next 90 days. They will be given the option of going to their home country or third countries. If they do not leave, […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":7,"featured_media":388187,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[107],"tags":[15822,3014,15823],"yoast_head":"\n