State allocates NIS 28 million for social programming for migrants

Neighborhoods with high proportion of asylum seekers to be designated national priority areas, receiving boost in health services, education

The government announced Monday that it would earmark NIS 28 million ($7.7 million) for social and economic programs for asylum seekers.

The money will be allocated to designated national priority areas in cities and neighborhoods with a high number of migrants and asylum seekers, such as south Tel Aviv, Petah Tikva and Eilat.

The funding, which will be used “to strengthen their economic and social resilience,” will be doled out by a ministerial steering committee.

The money will be distributed over three years, from 2018 to 2020.

It will provide additional health services to needy families as well as boosting both formal and non-formal education in those areas.

Since 2012, the Israeli government has tried to keep out asylum seekers and remove those already in Israel. It has erected a fence on its southern border, placed thousands of asylum seekers in a detention facility in southern Israel, offered incentives for them to leave and tried to negotiate deals with third-party countries to absorb them.

By 2018, about 37,000 asylum seekers remained in Israel. In April, the government struck a deal with the United Nations to transfer half of the asylum seekers to other developed countries while affording the other half legal status in Israel. But Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu abruptly backed out of the deal amid objections from Israeli residents of south Tel Aviv, who didn’t want any asylum seekers to remain in the country, portraying them as a threat to their safety and their culture.

JTA contributed to this report.