In the fall of 2023, clashes erupted on the streets of Tel Aviv, Israel, between factions of Eritrean migrants—some celebrating the 30th anniversary of Isaias Afwerki’s authoritarian rule and others protesting it. Police forces reacted to suppress the conflict, with officers firing live ammunition upon rally-goers and counter-demonstrators alike. In the aftermath of the violence, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu declared that all non-Israelis involved in the incident would be placed in administrative detention pending deportation, a charge that easily slipped into a rhetorical campaign calling for the systematic expulsion of all “illegal infiltrators.” In the weeks following, the Israeli government announced a $7.8 million offensive earmarked in part to deport Eritrean asylum seekers, some of whom had lived in Israel for decades. The move brazenly defied international law and echoed across the Sinai Peninsula.
For years, Israel’s hostile posture toward East African migrants has been grounded in nativism and emboldened by the global rise of populism. One of Israel’s two Chief Rabbis was caught slinging racial slurs, two teenagers lynched a Black African after he spoke to them for less than 10 seconds, and members of Netanyahu’s hardline right-wing coalition have given voice to a frightening surge in anti-Black sentiment in Israel. Israel has also struck backdoor deals siphoning off asylum seekers to already inundated Rwanda and Uganda, despite boasting a significantly higher GDP per capita than either nation. Between 2013 and 2018, nearly 4,000 asylum seekers were transferred to the two nations in bold defiance of United Nations High Commission for Refugees (UNHCR) guidelines. Although the program ended in 2018, Amnesty International reported that only 0.5 percent of 15,200 Eritrean and Sudanese asylum seeker claims were accepted by the Israeli government, with a mere 12 fully legitimized as refugees.
However, dynamics in the Middle East have dramatically shifted Israel’s calculus. Since the October 7 attacks by Hamas, Israel’s bombardment of the Gaza Strip has killed tens of thousands of Palestinians, many of them children, and wounded many more. Despite the Israeli government’s predilection for airstrikes, deployment of the Israel Defense Forces (IDF)’s active duty and reserve contingents has stretched through the Gaza Strip and West Bank. Soldiers facing PTSD, reservists refusing to return to Gaza, and the public backlash to a proposed draft of ultra-Orthodox Jews have all contributed to the government’s push to increase the IDF’s manpower. As conflict intensifies with the Hezbollah militant group in Lebanon, IDF leaders are diverting resources and deploying troops in greater numbers to Israel’s northern border, further contributing to a perceived lack of troops.
On September 15, Israeli media reported the rollout of new recruitment tactics. IDF representatives have approached Sudanese, Ethiopian, and Eritrean asylum seekers, promising permanent legal status in exchange for enlistment in the IDF. Although official reports on how these asylum seekers are deployed by the Israeli military are barred from public view by state censorship, it is estimated that the program seeks to fill a gap of nearly 10,000 soldiers. Most asylum seekers have been stuck in a limbo of conditional release permits for years, which offer nominal protection from deportation but withhold access to state medical coverage, welfare programming, and political representation. Full citizenship would offer hope where it has been scarce—hope for residential and economic stability, hope to finally put to rest the fear of a forced return to war-torn nations of origin. All one must do is participate in the ongoing campaign in Gaza.
Although the original report claims that the program is entirely legal, the move entails myriad ethical and moral questions. For years, the Israeli government has held an estimated 30,000 Eritrean and Sudanese asylum seekers in a never-ending battle of red tape, opting to deport some and leaving others with few pathways to social integration. Of these 30,000, around 8,700 are children and teenagers, and an estimated 57 percent were born in Israel. Asylum seekers are not allowed to hold driver’s licenses or professional licenses, and are often barred from participating in vocational training. This traps them in low-wage jobs where workplace exploitation is common. They are often concentrated in impoverished areas of urban Israel, accepting inflated rents for subpar apartments because many landlords are simply unwilling to rent to Africans.
The opportunity to escape these conditions through a pathway to citizenship is a golden one that many young Eritreans and Sudanese may be willing to embrace to finally be accepted by the country in which they were raised. Military service is required for citizens of Israel, which helps ingrain nationalism in the fiber of Israeli youth. Studies have found a connection between enlistment in the IDF and the degradation of social barriers for second-generation immigrants. Those enlisted were afforded greater formal and informal inclusion in Israeli society than their peers. It is no surprise, then, that many asylum-seeking youth want to join the military.
The conditions that asylum seekers find themselves in should be understood as an extension of the larger nationalist movement that has swept through Israel’s electorate in recent years. Netanyahu’s previous stints as prime minister had been marked by moments of Zionist zeal, but none so much as his current administration. The hardline coalition formed between Netanyahu and politicians like Itamar Ben-Gvir and Bezalel Smotrich has tapped into feelings of nativism, positioning asylum seekers as a threat to the country “be[ing] Jewish and democratic.” The African asylum-seeking population in Israel has been battered by populist rhetoric, physical and social walls, and labeling as “infiltrators.” Exploiting the individuals who are caught in an environment of the Israeli government’s own making reflects an intense and explicit moral failure of the state.
The whispered offerings of pathways to citizenship should be understood as a direct consequence of war. There are no confirmed reports of any African asylum seeker receiving concrete citizenship, inviting speculation that this move remains an illusory, desperate ploy by Netanyahu’s regime to recruit manpower to aid Israeli forces in the conflict. While Israel withholds full citizenship from many Arab Palestinians, it dangles it in front of its African residents—a cruel civil tactic to bolster its defenses.
Israel stands on the brink of a precipice. At the time of writing, tensions have escalated in Lebanon, with serious indications of an armed ground conflict on the horizon. Although the loss of any life is an abhorrent tragedy, the recruitment of African migrants by the IDF represents cold-hearted manipulation of a vulnerable population. The international community must be precisely attuned to the Israeli government’s changing attitudes toward its asylum-seeking population and condemn any practice of pawn-making in the ongoing war.