Sudanese migrant in Israel
Sudanese migrant in IsraelIsrael news photo: Flash 90

In recent weeks Israel has seen several violent crimes perpetrated by Sudanese and Eritrean citizens who entered the country illegally. According to Tel Aviv activist Corinne Galili, the crimes that make the media are only the tip of the iceberg.

Galili told Arutz Sheva that the public hears when Israelis are raped or murdered by illegal entrants – but that crimes in which foreign workers or other illegals are targeted go largely unreported. “They don’t have ID cards, and it’s easy to commit murder and bury the body – nobody will report them missing,” she explained.

“As a member of the Residents of Southern Tel Aviv council I hear about cases of bodies found where nothing was reported, about murders that remain unsolved,” Galili continued. “About a year ago a young woman was murdered in the Central Bus Station, and to this day the murder has not been solved and nobody talks about it.”

Galili’s mother Esther was a victim of Sudanese crime in Tel Aviv. The 68-year-old was beaten to death by a drunk Sudanese man in 2010 near her home in southern Tel Aviv.

The killer got just eight years in prison. “I was furious about the sentence, but it didn’t help,” Corinne recalled.

More and more neighborhoods are becoming home to the waves of illegal entrants, she said. “It started in Neve Shaanan and has spread to the Shapira and Hatikva neighborhoods. There’s a mass of people who join the circle of suffering every day.”

She called on the government to give illegal entrants everything they need – far away from Tel Aviv. “The real solution would be to build them a tent city on the border and make sure they have food and medical attention, and even to let them work, with everything done officially and with oversight,” she suggested. Unfortunately, she said, nobody in government has the courage to solve the growing problem.