Israel is reportedly building a tent-city detention center in the desert as it steps up efforts to round up and repatriate illegal African immigrants

Israel is building a fence along its border with Egypt with detention facilities nearby. "Maybe I sound like a racist, or unenlightened, hateful of foreigners," said Israeli Interior Minister Eli Yishai, who has been the most vocal advocate of deporting the Africans. "This is not a campaign against the infiltrators, but rather a campaign to preserve the identity of the Jewish Zionist state." Israel began deporting Africans in June 2012, after raids ostensibly targeting South Sudanese illegal immigrants in Tel Aviv and Eilat. Those detained were given the option of accepting about $1,250 each and repatriation via plane, or else face incarceration and forced deportation. South Sudanese make up a fraction of an estimated 60,000 Africans who have crossed illegally into Israel in recent years, mainly owing to lax Egyptian border controls. The Africans' growing presence has stoked tensions in major cities, notably Tel Aviv and Jerusalem, where a 68-year-old Eritrean man was severely beaten by drunken Jewish youths. Recently, arsonists set fire to an apartment housing African migrants; four occupants were treated for smoke inhalation. African migrants, meantime, have recently engaged in several incidents of theft and rape. "It's not safe for a black person to walk around in some areas," according to Yohannes Bayu, director of the African Refugee Development Center in Tel Aviv.