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Netanyahu orders crackdown on migrants after unrest involving Eritrean asylum seekers in Tel Aviv
(JTA) — Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has asked his advisors to renew their efforts to eject African asylum seekers from the country following an explosive clash between rival Eritrean groups and police in Tel Aviv on Saturday.
The unrest occurred after opponents of the dictatorial regime of Eritrean President Isaias Afwerki protested an Eritrean embassy event in Tel Aviv. They derailed the event, damaged the building where it was held and clashed with supporters of the regime. Police officers struggled to restore calm, with some reportedly shooting their guns while seeking to quell the violence. In all, more than 170 people were injured in the incident, including 50 police officers, according to Israeli media reports. Some remained hospitalized on Sunday.
The incident is drawing attention to two different political dynamics within Israel: the political right’s longstanding antagonism toward African asylum seekers, and the question of who within Netanyahu’s current government has authority over security matters.
There are an estimated 30,000 African asylum seekers in Israel, most of whom came by land between 2007 and 2012 from Eritrea, an impoverished country where a 30-year dictatorship is widely considered among the most repressive in the world. The influx of migrants largely ended more than a decade ago, when Israel constructed a fence along its southern border.
How to handle those who arrived has been an unanswered question since. The asylum seekers say they were fleeing war and oppressive regimes and seeking a safe haven in Israel. Activist groups supporting them want to see them afforded treatment in accordance with international law regarding political refugees, and have decried efforts to oust them as discriminatory.
Netanyahu and his allies, on the other hand, have argued that they are economic migrants who came to Israel looking for work, and portray them as a threat to Israel’s Jewish character as well as to quality of life in southern Tel Aviv, the cluster of low-income neighborhoods where many of them live.
The government has declined to recognize the vast majority of them as refugees and refers to them as “infiltrators.” It has sought to deport them or urge them to leave the country voluntarily, something approximately half of the 60,000 who crossed the border have done. Previously, Netanyahu has overseen efforts to detain asylum seekers en masse or make it harder for them to work.
In 2018, following backlash from the right, Netanyahu canceled a deal he helped formulate that would have relocated about 16,000 of the asylum-seekers to other countries in exchanging for giving others permanent residency in Israel.
On X, the platform known until recently as Twitter, Netanyahu said on Sunday that the unrest in Tel Aviv on Saturday had “crossed a red line” and he would ramp up those efforts. In addition to increased efforts at deportation, a ministerial committee Netanyahu formed in the wake of the riots discussed revoking asylum seekers’ work permits and advancing a law on immigration.
“I am asking the team I convened today to prepare a complete and updated plan for the removal of all other illegal infiltrators from the State of Israel,” he wrote.
The incident has also renewed attention to security coordination within Netanyahu’s eight-month-old government, in which newly empowered far-right ministers have sought and won control over some law enforcement agencies. Sources told Haaretz that Tel Aviv’s new police chief, installed after his predecessor was pushed out by the far-right National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir over his response to antigovernment protests, was unable to handle Saturday’s unrest and had to be relieved. He had not adequately prepared after receiving warnings that the protests could turn violent, the newspaper reported.
Hardline members of the government have publicly fought for months with leaders of Israel’s military and security establishment, whom they accuse of being too soft on protesters as well as Palestinian militants. On Sunday, Defense Minister Yoav Gallant shot back at those critics, saying they have made “outrageous statements that endanger the most important asset of the State of Israel, the Israel Defense Forces, according to the Times of Israel.
Following the riots, Ben-Gvir pressed for and won the right to hold many of the people arrested on Saturday in administrative detention, meaning that they could be held indefinitely without facing charges. Ben-Gvir has advocated for wider use of the form of detention, which Israel has been criticized for using on Palestinians accused of terrorism, as a tool to combat violence, crime and unrest. “Vandalism in Africa, not here,” he tweeted on Sunday.
Ben-Gvir visited the South Tel Aviv scene of the unrest and faced jeering from people there on Sunday, the Times of Israel reported. He said he would support any officer who fired a gun in self defense during Saturday’s unrest.
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The post Netanyahu orders crackdown on migrants after unrest involving Eritrean asylum seekers in Tel Aviv appeared first on Jewish Telegraphic Agency.
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After False Dawns, Gazans Hope Trump Will Force End to Two-Year-Old War
Palestinians walk past a residential building destroyed in previous Israeli strikes, after Hamas agreed to release hostages and accept some other terms in a US plan to end the war, in Nuseirat, central Gaza Strip October 4, 2025. Photo: REUTERS/Mahmoud Issa
Exhausted Palestinians in Gaza clung to hopes on Saturday that US President Donald Trump would keep up pressure on Israel to end a two-year-old war that has killed tens of thousands and displaced the entire population of more than two million.
Hamas’ declaration that it was ready to hand over hostages and accept some terms of Trump’s plan to end the conflict while calling for more talks on several key issues was greeted with relief in the enclave, where most homes are now in ruins.
“It’s happy news, it saves those who are still alive,” said 32-year-old Saoud Qarneyta, reacting to Hamas’ response and Trump’s intervention. “This is enough. Houses have been damaged, everything has been damaged, what is left? Nothing.”
GAZAN RESIDENT HOPES ‘WE WILL BE DONE WITH WARS’
Ismail Zayda, 40, a father of three, displaced from a suburb in northern Gaza City where Israel launched a full-scale ground operation last month, said: “We want President Trump to keep pushing for an end to the war, if this chance is lost, it means that Gaza City will be destroyed by Israel and we might not survive.
“Enough, two years of bombardment, death and starvation. Enough,” he told Reuters on a social media chat.
“God willing this will be the last war. We will hopefully be done with the wars,” said 59-year-old Ali Ahmad, speaking in one of the tented camps where most Palestinians now live.
“We urge all sides not to backtrack. Every day of delay costs lives in Gaza, it is not just time wasted, lives get wasted too,” said Tamer Al-Burai, a Gaza City businessman displaced with members of his family in central Gaza Strip.
After two previous ceasefires — one near the start of the war and another earlier this year — lasted only a few weeks, he said; “I am very optimistic this time, maybe Trump’s seeking to be remembered as a man of peace, will bring us real peace this time.”
RESIDENT WORRIES THAT NETANYAHU WILL ‘SABOTAGE’ DEAL
Some voiced hopes of returning to their homes, but the Israeli military issued a fresh warning to Gazans on Saturday to stay out of Gaza City, describing it as a “dangerous combat zone.”
Gazans have faced previous false dawns during the past two years, when Trump and others declared at several points during on-off negotiations between Hamas, Israel and Arab and US mediators that a deal was close, only for war to rage on.
“Will it happen? Can we trust Trump? Maybe we trust Trump, but will Netanyahu abide this time? He has always sabotaged everything and continued the war. I hope he ends it now,” said Aya, 31, who was displaced with her family to Deir Al-Balah in the central Gaza Strip.
She added: “Maybe there is a chance the war ends at October 7, two years after it began.”
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Mass Rally in Rome on Fourth Day of Italy’s Pro-Palestinian Protests
A Pro-Palestinian demonstrator waves a Palestinian flag during a national protest for Gaza in Rome, Italy, October 4, 2025. Photo: REUTERS/Claudia Greco
Large crowds assembled in central Rome on Saturday for the fourth straight day of protests in Italy since Israel intercepted an international flotilla trying to deliver aid to Gaza, and detained its activists.
People holding banners and Palestinian flags, chanting “Free Palestine” and other slogans, filed past the Colosseum, taking part in a march that organizers hoped would attract at least 1 million people.
“I’m here with a lot of other friends because I think it is important for us all to mobilize individually,” Francesco Galtieri, a 65-year-old musician from Rome, said. “If we don’t all mobilize, then nothing will change.”
Since Israel started blocking the flotilla late on Wednesday, protests have sprung up across Europe and in other parts of the world, but in Italy they have been a daily occurrence, in multiple cities.
On Friday, unions called a general strike in support of the flotilla, with demonstrations across the country that attracted more than 2 million, according to organizers. The interior ministry estimated attendance at around 400,000.
Italy’s right-wing government has been critical of the protests, with Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni suggesting that people would skip work for Gaza just as an excuse for a longer weekend break.
On Saturday, Meloni blamed protesters for insulting graffiti that appeared on a statue of the late Pope John Paul II outside Rome’s main train station, where Pro-Palestinian groups have been holding a protest picket.
“They say they are taking to the streets for peace, but then they insult the memory of a man who was a true defender and builder of peace. A shameful act committed by people blinded by ideology,” she said in a statement.
Israel launched its Gaza offensive after Hamas terrorists staged a cross border attack on October 7, 2023, killing some 1,200 people and taking 251 people hostage.
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Hamas Says It Agrees to Release All Israeli Hostages Under Trump Gaza Plan
Smoke rises during an Israeli military operation in Gaza City, as seen from the central Gaza Strip, October 2, 2025. Photo: REUTERS/Dawoud Abu Alkas
Hamas said on Friday it had agreed to release all Israeli hostages, alive or dead, under the terms of US President Donald Trump’s Gaza proposal, and signaled readiness to immediately enter mediated negotiations to discuss the details.