GAZA (Palestine Foundation Information Center) Hamas said that what has been revealed by Israeli media about the Israeli army recruiting “African asylum seekers” to fight in its ranks as mercenaries, “confirms the depth of the moral crisis in Israel.”
Haaretz newspaper revealed on Sunday that the Israeli army is blackmailing African asylum seekers by offering “the incentive of permanent residency status to asylum seekers who agree to participate in sometimes life-threatening military operations in Gaza.”
It added that the project is being implemented in an organized manner, under the guidance of the army’s legal advisors.
Hamas added in a press release that this recruitment confirms the Israeli violation of the most basic rules of human rights, by exploiting the need of immigrants and asylum seekers, “to throw them into battles, in an attempt to compensate for the great loss in the ranks of its army in its genocide war on the Gaza Strip.”
Hamas called on the international community and human rights institutions to condemn this crime, which reflects the “behavior of racist gangs”, and to take the necessary measures to hold the Israeli officials accountable for such violations of international and humanitarian laws.
According to Haaretz newspaper, there are currently about 30,000 African asylum seekers living in Israel, most of them are young people.
The Israeli newspaper quoted unnamed security sources as saying that the Israeli army used asylum seekers in dangerous missions in several military operations, some of which were published on the media.
