November 24, 2010

Yediot Ahronot

Sending Them to Their Death

By Einat Fischbein

A. didn’t even think he was disobeying an order. “I’m taking them to the base,” he
announced plainly on the radio to the company commander. A. contacted his
commander after he took into his vehicle a group of Africans that had crossed the
border during the night between Friday and Saturday. Even when the man on the
other end of the line informed him that he was to take the 13 Africans to a different
location on the border and put place them on the Egyptian side, A. did not change his
decision.

He asked to speak to the company commander, certain that if he could only explain
himself, the Africans would be at the base within minutes and he would be able to
return to his routine missions. But several minutes later A. was sent to the base on his
own. At the order of the company commander, the Africans were taken out of the
vehicle, loaded onto other vehicles, and from there continued on to the border. He
tried to talk to them, to explain to them where they were being taken, but they were
unable to understand him. Even now, as he awaits a disciplinary hearing for having
refused an order, he has no idea what became of them.

A., an officer in the reserves, is, as far as we know, the first soldier to refuse to carry
out an order according to the “Hot Return” procedure, alleging that this was a patently
illegal order and that as far as he knew, returning them to Egypt placed their lives at
risk. “Hot Return” — sending refugees from Africa back to Egypt as soon as they are
caught on the border — is currently and has been for the past three years under
deliberation by the High Court of Justice. The state’s official position is that the
procedure does not exist, aside from a handful of unique incidents and under properly
defined conditions.
An article in Yediot Ahronot’s supplemental section from last Friday reveals that
return to their homeland is not the only potential danger facing those seeking asylum
on the Israeli-Egyptian border. The rape and torture many of them undergo in Sinai
itself, by the smugglers, in an effort to squeeze thousands of dollars out of them—
makes Egypt an immediate danger for them.

“I was personally told about more than 30 women who were raped in the desert over
the past year and a half,” Masrat Psahiya from the Hotline for Migrant Workers tells
Yedioth Ahronoth. “About one in every two women is raped. Men undergo abuse that
is no less difficult including beatings and torture. I met someone who was stabbed
with a razor in the groin area, and he was in shackles there for several months.”

The Sudanese Tree

A., a student of behavioral studies and management, serves as an officer in a reservist

infantry unit. He has never been involved in political activity or human rights issues,
and this is the first time in his life that he took any action of this kind. He says that he
feels that he was given an order he could not implement. This was also the first and
only time he was sent to the Egyptian border. He learned the procedure of collecting
the asylum seekers from the border only in the days prior to the incident.

“Friday morning we caught a group of 31 people,” he recounts. “There were five or

six women and one small girl, an 11 month old baby. One of the women was holding
her crotch in an unusual fashion, and she had the look of death in her eyes. The others
also had this look. They were Sudanese and Eritrean, some were barefoot, some with
shirts tied around their feet instead of shoes, without any gear. We loaded them on the
Hummer in two batches and took them to the company. I saw the smiles on their faces
when the two groups reunited. It was a kind smile that said ‘it’s over, the disaster is
behind us, perhaps we can start something new.’ I think this is what caused me to
disobey an order that night.”
However, that night A. realized that something else was about to occur. “Before
dinner the battalion commander responsible for that sector arrived and explained what
was going to be done,” he recalls. “It was all said very quietly. He said they were
going to catch the group that would arrive later in the night and bring them back to a
spot in Egypt. Nearly every night refugees arrive. He said that just the other night he
had returned a couple. From this I ascertained that it was not a one-time incident.”

That very night, A. recalls, there were a great deal of forces on the border. “I was the
patrol officer along with a driver and two other soldiers and there was another patrol
round. They were stopped after they crossed the border, I closed the road and then we
drove to the ‘Sudanese tree’ (the tree around which all the groups caught crossing the
border are assembled before being send to the detention facility). There were 13 men,
I think from Sudan, ‘though I’m not quite sure. They were divided among the three
vehicles, five sat in mine. I planned on bringing them to the company like I did in the
morning, I reported on the radio that I would be there in a few minutes, and then the
company commander’s radio operator told me ‘you’re not going to the company —
you’re going to ---- (the number on the border fence, as ordered by the battalion
commander earlier).'

“Once I heard this I asked that the convoy come to a halt and that I be allowed to talk
to the company commander. I asked him to get out of the car and speak to me face to
face and I told him that I was not prepared to do this, that I wanted them to be taken to
the company. It was a short conversation, I phoned and woke up my battalion
commander, but in the end the company commander ordered me to return to company
headquarters and he divided up the refugees I was carrying among the other vehicles.
They did what they were told. I tried to tell them in English that that they were being
returned to Egypt, but I’m not sure they understood. I drove away. Afterwards I heard
on the radio that the ‘incident was over.’ I don’t know precisely what took place.”

Already three years ago a petition was filed with the High Court of Justice on behalf
of the Hotline for Migrant Workers and Tel Aviv University’s refugee assistance
program, asking that the “Hot Return” procedure be dismissed as illegal. They allege
that returning the refugees to Egypt constitutes a genuine threat to the asylum seekers,
mostly because Egypt allows them to be deported to countries like Sudan and Eritrea,
where their lives are at risk. In February this year the United Nations Refugee Agency
(UNHCR) presented to the High Court of Justice a report that states unequivocally:
Israel violates international law by returning asylum seekers to Egypt through the
“Hot Return” procedure.

While deliberations in the High Court of Justice continue, the Attorney General has
ordered that the procedure be allowed under limited conditions that require a detailed
investigation of each refugee, and allow immediate deportation only in the event that
he or she is not seeking asylum. The procedure, referred to as “coordinated return”
mandates the existence of translators and filling in forms. According to A., none of
this took place. […]