African asylum seekers protest in Israel

On the streets: More than 30,000 African asylum seekers took part in the rally. Photo: Getty Images

Tel Aviv: More than 30,000 African asylum seekers who entered Israel illegally have protested in Tel Aviv, in the biggest rally ever staged by migrants in the Jewish state.

"More than 30,000 demonstrators marched peacefully in Tel Aviv," police spokeswoman Lubra Samri said on Sunday.

Gathered in the coastal city's central Rabin Square, the protesters criticised Israel's refusal to give them refugee status and the detention without trial of hundreds of asylum seekers.

They chanted "We are all refugees" and "Yes to freedom, no to prison!",  with Israeli rights activists also joining the march.

MP Eli Yishai, a member of Israel's ultra-Orthodox Shas party and the hardline former interior minister who in 2012 led the government campaign to round up and deport tens of thousands of illegal migrants, denounced the protest.

Mr Yishai said the "infiltrators", as authorities call them, were encouraged by "anti-Zionist human rights organisations".

Rights groups say most African migrants in Israel cannot be deported because their lives would be under threat if they returned to their homes in Sudan and Eritrea.

Mr Yishai told the website of newspaper Maariv that Tel Aviv, where many of the migrants live, "long ago became an African city".

Dawud, an Eritrean asylum-seeker at the protest, said: "We have fled persecution, dictatorships, civil wars and genocides ... Instead of considering us refugees, Israel treats us like criminals."

Dawud, who did not give his full name, said the demonstrators intended to head for the UN refugee agency's Tel Aviv office and foreign embassies in the city in further rallies on Monday.

Many illegal immigrants, who are often employed in menial jobs in restaurants and hotels, also launched a three-day strike in several Israeli cities on Sunday.

Under legislation passed on December 10, authorities can detain illegal immigrants entering Israel for up to a year without trial.

The same month a sprawling detention facility named "Holot" or "Sands" opened in southern Israel's Negev desert to house illegals crossing the nearby Egyptian border and for immigrants already in the country deemed to have disturbed public order.

The moves triggered protest marches by migrants, including inmates who are allowed out during the day but locked in at night, but Sunday's was the largest demonstration by far.

Source-Smh