His office stated that after discussions with senior police officials, the ministry and Israel Police will urge the state prosecutor, attorney general, and interior ministries to take action on a deportation request that was submitted a year ago, which had also been discussed with the prime minister.
Ben Gvir’s statement further noted that “the national security minister would bring the issue before Prime Minister Netanyahu, urging his involvement”.
“It also mentioned that police have bolstered their presence in Tel Aviv to “maintain order and protect citizens’ safety.”
“In the past, the Interior Ministry and the Prosecutor’s Office expressed their willingness to help, but they failed to move the process forward,”Ben Gvir’s office added.
Unnamed Interior Ministry sources reported by Ynet contradicted earlier claims, stating that Interior Minister Moshe Arbel had sought a meeting with Tel Aviv’s police chief more than a month ago, but Ben Gvir did not approve the request.
During Saturday morning’s violent clash, pro-regime and anti-regime groups threw stones and attacked one another with sticks and spikes. Police arrived to break up the brawl, sometimes firing warning shots into the air.
Medics at the scene near the Central Bus Station found two men in their 30s severely beaten, unconscious, and not breathing. Despite efforts to revive them, both were pronounced dead on site.
Five others were injured, two seriously, two moderately, one lightly and were transported to hospitals for treatment.
On Saturday evening, lawmaker Yitzhak Wasserlauf from Ben Gvir’s ultranationalist Otzma Yehudit party proposed allocating NIS 5 million ($1.4 million) from his ministry’s budget to support a government unit facilitating the voluntary repatriation of foreign nationals.
Wasserlauf called for an immediate cabinet discussion on increasing funds for the Population and Immigration Authority’s Assisted Voluntary Return Department and urged all ministers to provide additional resources.
Clashes among Eritrean asylum seekers are common. Last month, a similar confrontation in Tel Aviv resulted in one death and one serious injury, while another man was stabbed in May.
In September of the previous year, major clashes in the city injured at least 170 people, including police officers.
In Israel, some Eritreans are asylum seekers who fled their country’s harsh military conscription and human rights abuses, while others, who support the regime and do not fear political retribution, are viewed as economic migrants.
Israeli governments have implemented various measures, some blocked by the courts, to encourage these migrants to leave.
Approximately 20,000 Eritreans live in Israel, having entered illegally before the barrier along the Egyptian border was completed in 2012.
In September, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s cabinet approved a plan by Yitzhak Wasserlauf and Minister for the Advancement of Women May Golan, allocating NIS 20 million ($5.5 million) to encourage African migrants and asylum seekers to leave Israel.
The plan also called for creating an inter-ministerial team to address “infiltrators,” a term used by the Israeli government for illegal entrants, and to remove them from neighborhoods.
Critics argue that Israel’s refusal to process asylum claims exacerbates the issue. After a riot, Netanyahu proposed deporting only pro-regime migrants involved in the violence, but the UN condemned this approach, calling mass expulsions illegal.
In 2018, Netanyahu arranged a deal with the UN to resettle half of the Eritrean population in third countries while granting status to the remaining half within Israel.
However, political opposition forced him to abandon the plan. Although the construction of a border barrier in 2012 reduced the influx of migrants, many still live in Israel under challenging conditions.
Last year, the Prime Minister’s Office announced that NIS 20 million ($5.5 million) would be allocated to “encourage the voluntary departure of infiltrators” as an alternative to forced deportation.