On Thursday Israel’s supreme court held off on a major decision by government to deport thousands of Eritrean and Sudanese migrants after those opposed to the move challenged the court
The court’s decision gives the state until March 26 to provide further information withstanding that the suspension on deporting them to a third country would remain in place until then.
In January Benjamin Netanyahu Prime Minister declared enforcement of the programme of removing migrants who entered illegally. They will be given a choice of either leaving voluntarily or facing indefinite imprisonment with eventual forced expulsion.
There are currently some 42,000 African migrants in Israel, half of them children, women or men with families, who are not facing immediate deportation according to interior ministry figures.
Israel is offering to relocate them to an unnamed African country, which deportees and aid workers say is Rwanda or Uganda, instead of them facing imprisonment or danger if they return to their home countries.
Migrants have been entering Israel through what was a porous Egyptian border in 2007. However now the border has been strengthened, and it is very difficult for migrants to use for illegal crossing’s.
Israel’s deportation or imprisonment plan has drawn criticism from the United Nations refugee agency as well as from some Israelis and rights activists.