Afrasianet - The Israeli newspaper Haaretz has obtained personal accounts from African asylum seekers who were offered by Israeli military institutions to contribute to the war effort in Gaza in exchange for the promise of helping to obtain permanent residency in Israel, which means asking them to risk their lives in

order to regularize their residency status, which according to the report is contrary to moral considerations.

However, according to testimonies published by Haaretz on September 15 about people who were asked to enlist in the army or officials who spoke privately, no asylum seekers who contributed to the war effort have yet been granted official status, and of the 30,000 African asylum seekers, most of whom arrived nearly a decade ago, only a very small number were granted asylum.

What is dangerous is that the occupation authorities define asylum-seekers as individuals who fled their homelands out of justified fear or persecution on various grounds, and instead of giving them their rights, Israel exploits them as tools to carry out another war of extermination.

Who are asylum seekers from Africa?

According to the Hebrew Immigrant Assistance Society, more than 45,000 African asylum seekers now live in Israel, about 15,000 more than the Haaretz report, which estimated there were about 30,000.

Some reports suggest the figure cited by the Migrant Aid Society appears to be more accurate, bolstered by leaks of deliberations about an Israeli government plan to deport 40,000 African infiltrators in 2018.

The previous report confirms that 73 per cent of asylum seekers are from Eritrea and 19 per cent from Sudan, mostly from Darfur, and they are people who have fled wars, genocide and persecution, and given the increase in conflicts in these areas, the number of asylum seekers has increased since 2018.

On the other hand, this group receives low wages and works in jobs that Israelis refuse to work such as building, cleaning and restaurants, and the state has recently passed laws that create new obstacles that severely limit the ability of many asylum seekers to work, and therefore increase their need, making them vulnerable to exploitation in such projects.

The Haaretz report noted that Defense Ministry officials confirmed that a project was being conducted in an organized manner and under the guidance of legal advisers.

According to the report, the project targets some 30,000 African asylum seekers living in Israel, most of whom are young, including a large number who have been granted temporary status by the court because the government has not processed or finalized their claims.

According to the Israeli occupation authorities, 0.5% of the applications were found to be legitimate, and the rest were classified as migrants who entered Israel illegally to seek economic opportunities, and therefore are not entitled to refugee protection under international law.

At the same time, the rest of the developed countries give asylum seekers from Eritrea and Sudan very high rates of 82% of applications, which is why those stuck regarding their legal status remain in the occupying power.

Defense Department officials therefore assessed that they could play on the idea of incentivizing asylum seekers to contribute to the war effort in exchange for exploiting their desire for permanent status.

Pointing out that targeting asylum seekers is a systematic matter, the military tries to serve one of the Interior Ministry's selection of refugees who can integrate into society: according to one asylum seeker, the military also views it as a preferred employment institution in that it is considered the best place to integrate into Israeli society.

In order to select the officers, police officers summon asylum seekers and direct them to security facilities without any explanation, and upon arrival they are told by a security official that the institution is looking for special people to join the army.

According to the testimonies contained in the report, persuasion has been taking place with some asylum seekers for more than two weeks and those who decide to turn down the offer are treated with great anger.

Despite the anger, the officers themselves hold on to this task, as happened with asylum seeker A, who was angry with the officer for rejecting the offer and then told him, "Let's keep talking and if you want later we will be able to do it."

If accepted, the asylum seeker is trained for two weeks and sent to participate in battles, even though he has never used a weapon in his lifetime.

Expulsion and deportation were the first option to get rid of asylum seekers and then moved on to employ them in the war of extermination, and according to a report published by The Cardle, asylum seekers mostly came from war-torn countries in Africa such as Eritrea and Sudan.

Between 2005 and 2012 they crossed the Sinai desert and entered in batches, and in 2017 Israel adopted a plan to deport 20,000

African migrants, and the Defense Ministry said at the time that "infiltrators will have the choice of imprisonment or leaving the country."

With the rise of the right, there have been calls for the isolation and eventual repatriation of asylum seekers, not only with nationalist anti-immigration protests, but also violence, attacks on Africans and looting of their shops and property.

Ironically, the Minister of Security at the time, Gilad Erdan, who currently represents the occupying power at the United Nations, confirmed at the time that the deportation of African infiltrators to a third country according to a deal is what was actually happening, without providing any details about the deal or the third country.

When looking at the recruitment of Africans who fled wars and genocide, there is a shift from acting racially against them and then expelling them to sacrificing them and throwing them into the battlefields where an African country, South Africa, files a lawsuit at the International Court of Justice accusing Israel of genocide.

Not only did it seek to recruit African adults, but the Haaretz report noted that the Defense Ministry had explored the possibility of recruiting children of asylum-seekers educated in Israeli schools.

The 1951 UN Refugee Convention, which governs international refugee law, guarantees some protections for people fleeing persecution, the most important of which are non-refoulement and the prompt handling of their asylum claims.

The occupying authorities have deliberately delayed the processing of refugee claims, failed to consider most of the applications, and attempt to characterize asylum-seekers as persons who entered illegally in search of economic opportunity and therefore are not entitled to refugee protection under international law.

Indicator of army attrition Since October 7, the Israeli army has clearly suffered from a shortage of human resources, and a report issued by the General Staff last March warned of a severe shortage of human resources, due to the deaths of hundreds of soldiers and the injury of thousands more, and said that 7,000 soldiers are needed to transport them to the battlefronts.

Over the past week, a number of former Israeli generals have criticized army commanders for their perceptions that have reduced the size of the army in terms of human resources and conventional equipment.

Among them was former General Yitzhak Brik, who said, "For almost 20 years, most IDF chiefs of staff lived on a perception that led to the disintegration of the IDF, when they decided that the major wars were over, that we had peace with Egypt andJordan, and therefore we could be content with a small, technological, intelligent army with offensive capabilities."

"During those years, thousands of army tanks, about half of artillery battalions, several infantry units, engineering battalions, and six ground troop divisions were reduced, which we lack today," Brik said. "Since 2002, ground forces have been reduced by 66 percent, to a third of their size," he said.

This lack of human resources, coupled with the difficulty of reaching consensus on the issue of Haredi recruitment into the army, indicates that the occupation is expected to resort to other means, such as the recruitment of mercenaries, dual nationals and even refugees.

In response to Haaretz, the Islamic Resistance Movement Hamas said in a statement, "The Hebrew media's revelations that the terrorist occupation army recruited African asylum seekers to fight in the Gaza Strip within its ranks, in exchange for facilitating their access to residency, is an affirmation of the depth of the moral crisis experienced by this rogue entity."

The statement added that this recruitment is "a violation of the most basic human rights rules, by exploiting the need of migrants and asylum seekers, to throw them into battles, and trying to compensate for the great bleeding in the number of its army due to the confrontation of the brave resistance of our people in the Gaza Strip."

The movement called on the international community and international human rights institutions to "condemn this crime, which reflects the behavior of racist gangs, and to take the necessary measures to hold the criminal leaders of the occupation accountable for their grave violations of the laws of war and international and humanitarian law."

Before the IDF recruitment efforts were exposed, several cases of recruitment of mercenaries and dual nationals joining the IDF were reported.

In a statement issued by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, the Government of South Africa expressed grave concern at reports

that some South African nationals had joined or were considering joining Israeli forces in the war in Gaza and the occupied Palestinian territories.

The ministry warned that the measure contributes to the violation of international law, leaving citizens who join the Israeli army vulnerable to prosecution in South Africa.

In this context, the Turkish parliament also approved the discussion of a draft law submitted by the Hoda Bar party on revoking the citizenship of Turkish dual nationals who participated in the war of genocide on Gaza in the ranks of the Israeli army.

The decision also calls for other penalties for citizens who participate in crimes by joining the armies of foreign countries, such as confiscation of their property if they do not return to Turkey within a period of 3 months from the date of their summons for investigation.

There have been voices in the French parliament calling for the trial of French citizens of foreign nationality fighting alongside the Israeli army in Gaza, and there have been many reports of mercenaries from foreign countries fighting in the ranks of the Israeli army, such as mercenaries from Ukraine.

In the past, several countries have been criticized for exploiting asylum seekers in certain jobs to cover labour shortages or employing them in hazardous or low-paid jobs without labour rights.

However, the Israeli occupation's exploitation of asylum-seekers fleeing persecution and wars of extermination in a war of extermination and persecution of the Palestinian people sets a

dangerous precedent and flagrant violation and disregard even of the moral reputation and international image.