Amid pressure from his conservative Likud party and from coalition hardliners, Israel's premier Benjamin Netanyahu on Tuesday cancelled a controversial resettlement deal with the United Nations that would have allowed thousands of African migrants to remain in the country.
Netanyahu announced the cancellation of the deal at the start of a meeting he held with residents of south Tel Aviv (a working-class area where the migrant population is concentrated) Israeli daily Haaretz reported on its website.
"I listened closely to many comments about the agreement," Netanyahu said, cited by Haaretz.
"After re-evaluating the advantages and disadvantages [of the deal], I decided to cancel the deal," Netanyahu added.
"Despite the growing legal and international limitation, we will continue to act work with determination to exhaust all possibilities at our disposal to remove the infiltrators," Netanyahu said.
Netanyahu had already signed the deal and his decision to suspend it raised questioned about the embattled Israeli leader's decision-making.
The U-turn came just hours after Netanyahu announced the accord with the UN refugee agency UNHCR in a televised address Monday, under which 16,000 African migrants would be allowed to stay in Israel and the same number would be resettled in Western countries including Italy.
Italy's foreign ministry said in a brief statement on Monday it was not involved in any agreement to take resettled African migrants under the pact between Israel and UNHCR.
An earlier plan to send the African migrants, who are mainly from Sudan and Eritrea, to a third country - reportedly Uganda or Rwanda - had drawn international criticism as well as from some Israelis and rights activists.
.jpg)
.jpg)
