A Jerusalem apartment housing Eritrean migrants was torched by racists overnight, on Monday. Firefighters rescued 10 people, four of whom needed medical attention. They were rushed to Shaare Zedek Medical Center in the city. The Fire Department said that their initial investigation indicated arson. Investigators also found the words “Get out of the neighborhood” sprayed on one of the walls. Three people were injured in the blaze with minor burns on their arms and legs while attempting to escape the blaze.
Right-leaning politicians have helped fan the flames. Eli Yishai, the ultra-Orthodox interior minister, has declared that all the asylum-seekers should be deported and said most “were criminals”. MK Miri Regev, a legislator from Benjamin Netanyahu’s Likud party, likened Africans to a “cancer in our body”. Yishai has announced its plans to speed up the deportation of at least 25,000 African immigrants living in the country. “The infiltrators along with the Palestinians will quickly bring us to the end of the Zionist dream,” said Interior Minister Eli Yishai to Maariv newspaper on Friday, adding the “Muslims that arrive here do not even believe that this country belongs to us, to the white man.”
Graffiti reading “Get out of the neighborhood” on a house inhabited by Eritrean migrant workers which was set on fire in the early hours of June 4, in Jerusalem (Photo: Activestills)
Communist lawmaker MK Dov Khenin rounded on the new measures the Israeli government is taking, branding them as racist and immoral. MK Khenin echoed the opinions of Israelis who feel that Jews, often victims of racist and nazi-fascist persecution in the past, should show compassion to the migrants and refuges.
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