Israel Aims to Force Sudanese Refugees Back Home

A Sudanese immigrant family in a Sudanese restaurant south of Tel Aviv (AP)
A Sudanese immigrant family in a Sudanese restaurant south of Tel Aviv (AP)
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Israel Aims to Force Sudanese Refugees Back Home

A Sudanese immigrant family in a Sudanese restaurant south of Tel Aviv (AP)
A Sudanese immigrant family in a Sudanese restaurant south of Tel Aviv (AP)

The Israeli Interior Ministry resumed interviewing asylum seekers from Sudan’s Darfur region to pressure and persuade them to return to their homeland after the new regime established relations with Tel Aviv.

In April, the High Court of Justice ordered the state to resume examining 2,445 asylum requests, some of which have been pending for eight years or longer.

The court gave the government until the end of the current year to complete the examination procedures. It clarified that if decisions haven’t been made by then, it will grant them temporary residency until decisions are made in their cases.

Over the last two weeks, the ministry summoned dozens of Darfuris for interviews. However, the sessions were interrogations aimed at pushing them to emigrate and relinquish their asylum applications.

One asylum seeker said he was interrogated about why he was still in Israel and whether he should go home.

They told him there’s peace in Sudan, and he should return there. They also asked about his political affiliations.

Another said the interviewers treated him like a suspect under interrogation. “They asked me to answer questions with ‘yes’ or ‘no,’” he said. “I couldn’t talk freely, and I didn’t manage to tell them my problems.”

He was told that the ministry is in contact with several people who returned to Sudan, noting that they are fine.

He indicated that the point of this whole process is to pressure the Sudanese to emigrate without any consideration of their conditions and what might happen to them back home.

New Interior Minister Ayelet Shaked says that doing so is part of her policy.

Shaked’s office said in a statement that the Refugee Status Determination Committee interviews every applicant personally.

“The minister attaches supreme importance to dealing with the issue of the infiltrators,” it added. “Therefore, in line with the High Court’s ruling, she is working to carry out thorough, professional, individual examinations of Darfuris’ asylum requests.”

After the toppling of the regime of Omar al-Bashir, discussions were suspended, hoping that hundreds of Sudanese will return home.

However, Nimrod Avigal, who runs the legal aid program at the refugee assistance organization, claimed that all the interviews being conducted now are intended not to examine the applications seriously but to create a deceptive picture of the Sudanese who did return home and the impact of the establishment of relations between Jerusalem and Khartoum.

He said that the asylum seekers are living “with no basic rights, in poverty and despair,” he said.

“Even today, none of the many people who have already had asylum interviews has gotten a decision on their application.”

The Hotline for Refugees and Migrants welcomed the resumption of interviews, adding, “an honest, professional examination of the applications will reveal once and for all what Israel has refrained from saying for years – the asylum seekers from Darfur are refugees.”

There are 28,000 African asylum seekers in Israel, most of whom are from Eritrea and Sudan. Half of them live in Tel Aviv, and the rest live in the Arab towns.

The Sudanese are mainly from Darfur, and they reached Israel via the Egyptian Sinai.

The Israeli government built a wall along the border to prevent them from seeking refuge there. Over the past few months, dozens of them arrived by infiltrating through the Lebanese border.



Putin Thanks Saudi Leadership for Sponsoring ‘Positive’ Riyadh Talks

 A handout photo made available by the Russian Foreign Ministry Press Service shows Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov (R) and Russian presidential aide Yury Ushakov (2-R) attending a meeting with US Secretary of State Marco Rubio (2-L), US National Security Advisor Mike Waltz (3-L) and US Middle East envoy Steve Witkoff (L), Saudi Foreign Minister Prince Faisal bin Farhan bin Abdullah and Saudi National Security Advisor Dr. Musaed bin Mohammed Al-Aiban at Diriyah Palace in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, 18 February 2025. (EPA / Russian Foreign Ministry Press Service)
A handout photo made available by the Russian Foreign Ministry Press Service shows Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov (R) and Russian presidential aide Yury Ushakov (2-R) attending a meeting with US Secretary of State Marco Rubio (2-L), US National Security Advisor Mike Waltz (3-L) and US Middle East envoy Steve Witkoff (L), Saudi Foreign Minister Prince Faisal bin Farhan bin Abdullah and Saudi National Security Advisor Dr. Musaed bin Mohammed Al-Aiban at Diriyah Palace in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, 18 February 2025. (EPA / Russian Foreign Ministry Press Service)
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Putin Thanks Saudi Leadership for Sponsoring ‘Positive’ Riyadh Talks

 A handout photo made available by the Russian Foreign Ministry Press Service shows Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov (R) and Russian presidential aide Yury Ushakov (2-R) attending a meeting with US Secretary of State Marco Rubio (2-L), US National Security Advisor Mike Waltz (3-L) and US Middle East envoy Steve Witkoff (L), Saudi Foreign Minister Prince Faisal bin Farhan bin Abdullah and Saudi National Security Advisor Dr. Musaed bin Mohammed Al-Aiban at Diriyah Palace in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, 18 February 2025. (EPA / Russian Foreign Ministry Press Service)
A handout photo made available by the Russian Foreign Ministry Press Service shows Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov (R) and Russian presidential aide Yury Ushakov (2-R) attending a meeting with US Secretary of State Marco Rubio (2-L), US National Security Advisor Mike Waltz (3-L) and US Middle East envoy Steve Witkoff (L), Saudi Foreign Minister Prince Faisal bin Farhan bin Abdullah and Saudi National Security Advisor Dr. Musaed bin Mohammed Al-Aiban at Diriyah Palace in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, 18 February 2025. (EPA / Russian Foreign Ministry Press Service)

Russian President Vladimir Putin said he would like to meet with President Donald Trump but the meeting needs to be prepared to make it productive.

"I would like to have a meeting, but it needs to be prepared so that it brings results," Putin said in televised remarks. He added that he would be "pleased" to meet Trump.

Putin hailed the "positive" talks between senior Russian and US officials in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, on Tuesday, noting that the parties agreed to restore the tattered diplomatic relations.

He expressed his gratitude to Custodian of the Two Holy Mosques King Salman bin Abdulaziz and Prince Mohammed bin Salman, Crown Prince and Prime Minister, for holding the talks in Riyadh.

"In my opinion, we have taken a first step to resume work in a variety of areas that are of mutual interest," Putin said. These included issues relating to the Middle East, global energy markets and cooperation in space, he said.

"Without increasing the level of trust between Russia and the United States, it is impossible to resolve many issues, including the Ukrainian crisis."

Ukraine and European governments were not invited to the talks in the Saudi capital, which heightened their concern that Russia and the United States might cut a deal that ignores their vital security interests.

But Putin said Russia had never rejected talks with the Europeans or with Kyiv, and it was they who had refused to talk to Moscow.

'NO ONE IS EXCLUDING UKRAINE,' PUTIN SAYS

"If they want, please, let these negotiations take place. And we will be ready to return to the table for negotiations," he said.

"No one is excluding Ukraine," he added, saying that there was therefore no need for a "hysterical" reaction to the US-Russia talks.

Putin praised the American's "restraint" in the face of what he called "boorish" behavior by US allies.

He said he would be "happy to meet with Donald".

"But we are in such a situation that it is not enough to meet to have tea, coffee, sit and talk about the future. We need to ensure that our teams prepare issues that are extremely important for both the United States and Russia, including - but not only - on the Ukrainian track, in order to reach solutions acceptable to both sides."

Putin said this would be no easy task. He said that Trump himself, who during the US election campaign repeatedly promised to end the Ukraine war in 24 hours, was now talking about a period of six months.

He said this was "natural" because Trump had simply begun to receive fresh information that changed his approach.