Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu ordered his ministers to accelerate efforts to deport citizens of South Sudan, the Ivory Coast, Ghana and Ethiopia who are living in Israel illegally on Sunday. Speaking at Sunday's cabinet meeting, Netanyahu said that while it is not possible to expel citizens of Eritrea and Sudan, whose lives would be at risk in their home countries, holding facilities for them must be built in the Negev as quickly as possible. A senior Israeli official said that two different groups of migrants were presented during Sunday's cabinet debate. The first was migrants from countries with which Israel has diplomatic relations, and with regard to whom there is no barrier to repatriating them under international law, he said. This group numbers some 25,000 of the approximately 60,000 African migrants now in Israel.
