In November 2025 the Norwegian government decided that Eritreans who falsely claimed they had fled repression by their own government would be deported. For the first time, the Norwegian Directorate of Immigration or Utlendingsdirektoratet (UDI) removed the Norwegian citizenship of Eritreans because they actually support the regime they claimed they fled from.

Now the Israeli government is doing the same. This article was published by the centre-left newspaper Ha’aretz.

Under pressure from Ben-Gvir, the police and the Population Authority are detaining Eritreans ahead of deportation—though it cannot be carried out.

In the absence of an Interior Minister who holds the authority to deport supporters of the Eritrean regime, the deportation cannot be implemented. The renewal of administrative detentions, decided upon at the end of a meeting between the minister and representatives of the authorities, raises suspicion that the police knew they would not be able to extend the detentions through criminal proceedings—and therefore turned to an administrative route.

Ran Shimoni and Bar Peleg
Haaretz , June 10, 2026

The police and the Population and Immigration Authority have begun arresting Eritreans identified by them as supporters of the regime in their country, with the intention of deporting them from Israel, following pressure from National Security Minister Itamar Ben Gvir. However, their deportation is not expected to be carried out soon, because the authority to do so lies with the Minister of Interior, and Israel has been without a minister in that position for about eight months. During this time, no attempt has been made to transfer that authority to another body.

The Attorney General’s Office was unaware of the plan to arrest Eritrean regime supporters. Moreover, it did not participate in the decision-making process, even though it noted that the absence of a serving Interior Minister creates a legal difficulty in carrying out the arrests. The Population and Immigration Authority and Minister Ben Gvir’s office declined to respond to Haaretz’s request for comment.

In June 2025, the Knesset approved a bill to deport Eritreans identified as supporters of the dictatorial regime in their country, initiated by MKs Yitzhak Kroizer (Otzma Yehudit) and Yulia Malinovsky (Yisrael Beiteinu), on the grounds that they are not entitled to refugee status and should be removed to Eritrea. An amendment was also approved at that time allowing for the deportation of asylum seekers convicted of criminal offenses punishable by more than three years in prison. However, a year after the amendments came into force, out of 17 cases reviewed by the state, only one person has been removed from Israel.

Last month, after a teenager was stabbed by youths from the SSQ gang in Tel Aviv, Minister Ben-Gvir sent a letter to the media accusing the Attorney General’s Office of obstructing the implementation of the law. Ben-Gvir claimed that the legal advisory body was acting “contrary to government policy and Knesset legislation,” and demanded that a meeting be convened in which they would be required to present an “immediate action plan for implementing the law.”

The Attorney General’s Office rejected the claim, responding that responsibility for implementing the law lies with the government. However, for approximately two and a half years—since the riots in South Tel Aviv in September 2023—the special ministerial committee established to address the issue has not been convened, and the minister himself did not deal with the matter for nearly two years.

At a discussion held about two weeks ago in the Knesset Interior Committee on oversight of the law’s implementation, it emerged that the Interior Ministry, which is operating without a serving minister, and the police, operating under Ben Gvir’s authority, are the bodies struggling to implement it. “It’s a process, and at every stage there are quite a few difficulties,” said a representative of the Interior Ministry. “From identification and documentation to drafting the legal opinions for the Interior Minister.” Superintendent Anat Ashkenazi, commander of the South Tel Aviv station, acknowledged that investigative teams are having difficulty obtaining evidence to prove that detainees support the regime.

The day after the committee discussion, a meeting was held between Ben Gvir, representatives of the Population Authority, and police representatives, following a letter sent by the minister. A source familiar with the meeting said it was agreed that the police would resume administratively detaining Eritreans. A similar move was taken briefly after the 2023 riots, when dozens of Eritreans were detained without evidence and transferred to Givon Prison in preparation for deportation under the amended law—intended to accelerate its implementation and overcome evidentiary difficulties.

At the end of the meeting, police arrested seven Eritreans in Tel Aviv on suspicion of “behavior likely to disturb public order.” They searched their homes and transferred them to the Population Authority, claiming that evidence had been found of the detainees’ support for the Eritrean regime. The seven were not brought before a court for a remand hearing, but were held for five days until hearings before the Population Authority’s Detention Review Tribunal.

This mode of operation raises suspicion that the police arrested them knowing they would be unable to extend their detention through criminal proceedings, and misused their authority to locate evidence of support for the regime that would allow administrative detention. This is compounded by statements made by Interior Ministry and police representatives in the same committee discussion, who claimed they had found a “breakthrough in the steps that need to be taken.” Shortly afterward, Superintendent Ashkenazi stated that in any case that does not mature into an indictment or extended detention, the station would involve the Population and Immigration Authority and would try to “exhaust the possibilities for deportation.”

“The fact that I hold a national flag does not mean I support the regime,” said one of the detainees. “It’s like saying an Israeli hates the country because he opposes Bibi.”

In five of the seven arrests, the evidence presented as “proof” of support for the Eritrean regime consisted of national flags found in the detainees’ homes. A.S., one of the detainees, protested this during a hearing at the Population Authority tribunal: “I oppose the regime in Eritrea. The flag belongs to the state, not the government. But whoever arrested me thought otherwise.” Judge Rachel Oberman asked the head of border control whether the state intended to deport him. After he replied in the affirmative, Oberman approved the continuation of the detention, even though in practice there is no real prospect of his removal from Israel.

Three of the detainees testified before the Detention Review Tribunal that they experienced police violence during their arrest and were forced to the ground. One added that officers damaged property in his home. “The fact that I hold a national flag does not mean I support the regime,” said one. “My father was killed for the country, and that’s why I hold the flag. I support my country,” he added. “It’s like saying an Israeli hates the country because he opposes Bibi.”

In another case, the head of border control said that materials and objects linked to an organization supporting the Eritrean regime were found in a suspect’s home, including incitement materials indicating intent to harm regime opponents, and even materials suggesting involvement in the murder of opponents. Despite these serious criminal suspicions, he was not interrogated by police and was not formally suspected of involvement in such acts.

According to attorney Moshe Zakut, who represents the detainees, cooperation between the police and the Population Authority is unlawful when “individuals holding residence visas who are not involved in criminal acts are detained without any grounds.” He added that “court rulings over the years have unequivocally established that detention procedures must not be used as a substitute for criminal proceedings, yet the police, together with the Authority, effectively ignore this.” In the coming days, hearings will be held on an appeal submitted to the district court against the tribunal’s decisions to extend the detentions.

The Hotline for Refugees and Migrants, which has been monitoring the implementation of the law over the past year, argues that the amendment itself is “an outrageous attempt to circumvent the Refugee Convention, which Israel is also failing to implement.” According to the organization, “if Israel had made the effort to maintain a functioning asylum system, the applications of those who support the Eritrean regime would have long since been rejected, they could have been held in detention, and it is possible they would have chosen to return to their country voluntarily.”