Responding to outrage and mounting pressure from government ministers and other coalition members, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu announced on Tuesday that he was canceling the new agreement with the U.N. refugee agency to relocate thousands of African migrants from Israel while allowing thousands of others to stay.
Netanyahu said the government would return to the drawing board and work to devise other solutions.
"Every year I make thousands of decisions that benefit the State of Israel and the public, and from time to time I make a decision that needs to be reconsidered. After many consultations and … after re-evaluating the advantages and disadvantages in play, I decided to cancel the agreement," Netanyahu said in a statement.
"Despite the growing legal and international difficulties, we will continue to act with determination to exhaust all the available possibilities to deport infiltrators, all while we work to devise other solutions."
The prime minister had announced the new arrangement on Monday, but hours later said he was putting its implementation on hold until further review and that he was planning to meet with representatives of south Tel Aviv neighborhoods on Tuesday. On Tuesday afternoon, he announced that he was officially canceling the deal.
According to the agreement, 16,250 of the roughly 37,000 African migrants currently in Israel, most of them from Eritrea and Sudan, would have been relocated to Western nations while the rest would have been allowed to stay in Israel.
The suspension of the deal garnered praise from the Right and derision from the Left.
Netanyahu initially praised the agreement, but in the hours that followed, he faced growing calls on social and mainstream media to cancel it.
On Monday, after reaching the agreement but before the suspension, Netanyahu wrote on his official Facebook page: "Over the past two years, I have worked with Rwanda with the intention it would act as a 'third country' to absorb the illegal migrants we deport, even without their agreement. This is the only legal recourse we have left to deport infiltrators without their agreement, after all the other steps we took were dismissed on legal grounds.
"Rwanda agreed to it and we began implementing these deportation measures. In recent weeks, amid enormous pressure on Rwanda by the [left-wing NGO] New Israel Fund and sources in the European Union, Rwanda has withdrawn from the agreement and refused to accept infiltrators from Israel who were forcibly deported.
"Under these circumstances, I decided to search for a new agreement to continue the process of deporting infiltrators regardless. With that, I hear you, first and foremost, the residents of south Tel Aviv."
The impoverished neighborhoods of south Tel Aviv have attracted the largest migrant community, changing the area's ethnic makeup and frightening some of its inhabitants, who want the migrants out.
Implementing the agreement was expected to take five years and Netanyahu's backtrack was largely seen in Israel as an attempt to appease his voter base and keep its support at a time of political uncertainty.
Habayit Hayehudi chairman Naftali Bennett, a key member of Netanyahu's coalition government, praised the prime minister's decision to suspend the agreement, saying that "giving residency status to 16,250 illegal migrants would turn Israel into a haven for infiltrators."
Bennett said suspending the agreement was not enough.
"We must move on to a new arrangement that will remove illegal migrants from Israel," he said. "Israel is not the world's employment bureau."
Science and Technology Minister Ofir Akunis (Likud) also commended the prime minister's decision to suspend the agreement, saying, "If it made the Left so happy, it must have been fundamentally wrong."
Meretz leader Tamar Zandberg lambasted Netanyahu for backtracking on the deal.
"In a cowardly move, Netanyahu succumbed to the most ardent extremists on the Right and to do it he is once again reverting to customary incitement against the New Israel Fund and civilian social groups," she said.
"Every time they tell us the prime minister is a 'magician,' we need to keep in mind that he is easily influenced by pressure, a failure and a coward who runs the country according to his political interests with zero diplomatic consideration. I suggest he also invite the residents who rallied in solidarity with the asylum seekers to meet with him, along with the representatives of south Tel Aviv."
Zionist Union head Avi Gabbay said of Netanyahu's reversal Monday evening: "This is a sad, embarrassing and mostly troubling night. We have no reason to assume that on matters of security, the prime minister's decision-making process is any better."
The U.N. refugee agency, the U.N. High Commissioner for Refugees, confirmed an agreement was signed with Israel but did not name the countries that would accept the migrants.
It said the UNHCR would "facilitate the departure to third countries to be determined of some 16,000 Eritreans and Sudanese under various programs, including sponsorship, resettlement, family reunion and labor migration schemes, while others will be receiving a suitable legal status in Israel."
Netanyahu named Germany, Italy and Canada as examples of countries that would accept the migrants, though German and Italian officials said they had no knowledge of any such agreement.
Rights groups had challenged the deportation in Israel's High Court, which on March 15 issued a temporary order that froze its implementation.
