Date: Tue, 25 Aug 2015 20:17:14 +0200
Israel began releasing more than 1,000 asylum seekers from the Holot detention center in the Negev desert on Tuesday morning, two weeks after the country's Supreme Court ruled that inmates could not be held in the facility for more than 12 months.
The mass release is bittersweet for many of the men leaving the facility. Last week, the Interior Ministry announced that all former Holot detainees are banned from living and working in Tel Aviv and Eliat, two of the country's largest cities and the places where most African asylum seekers in Israel have support networks and the best chance of finding work.
Standing outside the facility with a guitar strapped to his back and all of his worldly possessions in a suitcase, Magdi Hassan said he still didn't know where he would go next. "All the people I know, who I could stay with, are in Tel Aviv," he told VICE News. "So now I'm just trying to find somewhere to stay for a few days that's all I can do really, that or it's the park bench."
Located deep in the desert, the Holot detention center was built in 2012. Detainees are technically allowed to leave the open facility, but it's around 45 miles from the nearest sizeable town, inmates must be present for three daily roll calls, and special permits are required for overnight stays outside — a situation that makes Holot a virtual prison. At full capacity, it can hold 3,000 people.
Over the course of Tuesday and Wednesday, some 1,768 asylum seekers are set to be released from the facility. The two-stage release will see around 600 detainees freed each day. More than 500 will be kept back as they have not yet served the 12-month period deemed "proportionate" by the court.
Hassan is not alone in the uncertainty about the next step in his journe. All of the freed detainees that spoke with VICE News on Tuesday morning said they didn't know where they were headed after leaving Holot, or only had arrangements that would last a few days.
Tel Aviv, Israel's second-largest city, and Eliat, a southern port city, have long been hubs for African asylum seekers in Israel. Most work in the tourism and service sectors in the coastal cities, in jobs ranging from bartending to cleaning.
Aman Beyene, an Eritrean who says he fled his country after he was tortured by government security forces, told VICE News lived in Eliat for six years previously. "That's my home, that's where I know people, where I have friends, where I can find work, but now I am just told I cannot go back there," he said. "This kind of thing needs preparation, a month or two, but I was only told two days ago. It's not enough time to find an apartment, a life somewhere else. What am I meant to do? Go and sleep on the streets in a city I don't know?"
Outside the facility, recently released detainees ambled around chatting about their options. No special transportation was provided for those trying to leave, so hundreds of men crammed their luggage onto regular buses and headed for Be'er Sheva, the largest town in the Negev desert.
"Where are these people going to go? That's the question we're all asking," Mutasim Ali, a vocal rights activist from the African asylum seeker community in Israel, told VICE News. "At the moment there's no answer. It's something the community is debating, but I can't answer it because no one has the answer."
There are currently estimated to be around 63,000 African asylum seekers in Israel, mostly from Eritrea and Sudan. Most entered the country before Israel erected a 16-foot steel fence on its border with Egypt in 2012. Right-wing Israeli lawmakers have routinely called asylum seekers "infiltrators."
Human Rights Watch (HRW) said banning asylum seekers from two of Israel's major cities is "unlawful," and the government's goal appears to be "making these peoples' lives miserable."
"[Israeli authorities] have replaced an illegal detention measure with an illegal freedom of movement measure," Gerry Simpson, a senior refugee researcher at HRW, told VICE News. "It's designed to make people unsettled and anxious, there is a profound psychological impact of feeling like you may be taken to Holot for 12 months and then not allowed to return to your apartment, friends, and family [in Tel Aviv or Eliat]."
In September 2014, HRW released a lengthy report detailing multiple abuses of the rights of asylum seekers by Israel, mostly focusing on Holot and the so-called "anti-infiltration law" that lands most detainees in the facility. The report accused the Israeli government of using a variety of means to coerce asylum seekers into relocating to third-party countries such as Uganda and Rwanda.
Standing outside Holot on Tuesday morning, Eihab Atamneh told VICE News that he had come to the facility to recruit and interview potential workers for Isrotel Hotel in the Dead Sea. "We need these guys to come and work," he said. "In the resorts there are big staffing shortages. Israelis don't want work for the kind of money that is being offered for this kind of job. We offer apartments and an honest living — keeping people off the streets… I have about 26 interviews lined up for today already, for us this is a big opportunity."
But the former detainees in Holot's courtyard already seem to be struggling with their transition back into free life in Israel, which for many will be done far away from family and friends. More than an hour after his release, Hassan was still trying to hustle a lift to the house of good Samaritan who may be able to host him for a few nights, but the town were she lives is 20 minutes outside Tel Aviv, and he is struggling to find a way there without passing through the prohibited city. Some of the freed detainees are not fluent in Hebrew, and struggle to understand the paperwork that explains their release "conditions."
Israel has one of the lowest acceptance rates for asylum claims by Eritreans and Sudanese in the world. Since August 2014, only 0.01 percent of requests by these groups have been accepted, compared to an international average of 83 and 67 percent.
Rights groups have highlighted that the bureaucratic processes involved in applying for asylum are so complex they effectively obstruct applications, and applicants say the authorities often simply do not process their claims.
Above all, many of the men leaving Holot said that despite their release, they remain in limbo and fear Israel may change its policy yet again.
"At the moment, everything is still very uncertain," Beyene said. " There's no way to know whether tomorrow we'll be taken back to Holot or put on a flight to Uganda. They need to find some kind of solution, because the people that stayed even when Holot was the only option, they won't leave unless they're physically forced onto a plane."