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TEL AVIV — Walk through Levinsky Park near the central bus station here and you might think you were in another country. African men, and some women, occupy every inch of a low stone bench in the brutal sun. Blankets are stashed in the branches of a eucalyptus tree, to be retrieved at nightfall. For block after block of this seedy South Tel Aviv neighborhood, with trash spilling out of dumpsters and peddlers hawking batteries and blue jeans from sidewalk mats, nearly every person is African, mostly from Eritrea and Sudan. Israel, as government officials here like to point out, is the only first-world country that you can walk to from Africa. This geographic reality has produced a flood — 60,000 in the last seven years — of refugees who make their way first to Egypt and then through the Sinai desert to Israel’s southern border. Even as a share of the population in this country of nearly 8 million, that figure is low compared to the number of illegal immigrants...

Closing date: 28 Feb 2011 Location: Israel - Tel Aviv-Yafo The African Refugee Development Center (ARDC) is a non-profit organization founded in 2004 by refugees and Israeli citizens to assist support and empower refugees and asylum seekers in Israel. The ARDC seeks to ensure access to basic social services, and to facilitate refugee and asylum seeker integration, self-sufficiency and ownership in matters affecting their lives. The ARDC advocates for the rights of refugees and asylum seekers and for a humane and fair Israeli asylum policy. It divides its work between individual counselling, humanitarian aid, education, community development, awareness raising and policy initiatives. The overall role of the Volunteer Coordinator is to support the volunteers before and during and sometimes after their stay in Israel. This includes aspects of the volunteer experience relating to their volunteer placement including interviewing and placement, distributing useful information. Interns...

TEL AVIV – In de straten en parken rond het oude busstation in het centrum van Tel Aviv bevinden zich veel migranten. Hun gelaatstrekken tonen dat ze uit Midden-Afrika en Zuidoost-Azië afkomstig zijn. In Israël bevinden zich ongeveer een half miljoen migranten, onder wie een kleine 20.000 asielzoekers. De komst van de asielzoekers baart Israël zorgen. Premier Benjamin Netanyahu waarschuwde in januari tijdens een bezoek aan de poreuze grens met Egypte tegenover de nieuwswebsite Ynet voor een „grote golf” van vluchtelingen uit Afrika. Zij veroorzaken volgens hem „sociaaleconomische en culturele schade en dreigen ons naar beneden te halen naar het niveau van ontwikkelingslanden.” Ook beschuldigde de regeringsleider de vluchtelingen ervan de banen af te pakken van de maatschappelijk gezien zwakste Israëliërs. In januari gaf Netanyahu toestemming voor bouw van een modern hekwerk met radars op delen van de 200 kilometer lange grens tussen Israël en Egypte. Hij toerde ook rond in het gren...

The Supreme Court is currently discussing a case that concerns Israel's practice of immediately returning asylum seekers who cross from Egypt into Israel back across the border. It appears that in so doing, Israel may be violating international law, according to a position paper submitted to the court by the United Nations High Commission on Refugees. The lawsuit in question was originally filed in 2007 by several human rights organizations represented by the Hotline for Migrant Workers and the refugee rights project of Tel Aviv University. Advertisement The immediate or "hot return" policy, as it is called, allows Israel Defense Force soldiers to return infiltrators to a neighboring country if 24 hours have not elapsed since their entry, and as long as they have not gone further than 50 kilometers from the Israeli border. The UN High Commission's position in the case is that, due to the conditions in Egypt, and until there a formal agreement that is honored ...