Two weeks ago young Israelis set up a tent city in the heart of Tel Aviv’s
richest neighborhood on Rotschild Boulevard. Since then similar tent
cities sprung up throughout the country.
On Sunday, residents in Tel Aviv’s poorest neighborhood set up a tent city
as well. The area, which includes the neighborhoods of Neve Sha’anan,
Hatikva, Shapira, and Florentine are known for being the home of low
income families, single parent households, and most recently, refugees
and migrant workers.
At 4:30 in the morning, the Ministry of the Environment removed the tents
and confiscated them. Of all the tent-cities throughout Israel, this is the
only one to be evicted.
Story Transcript
LIA TARACHANSKY, TRNN: Two weeks ago, young Israelis set up a tent city in the heart of Tel Aviv’s richest neighborhood on … Boulevard. Since then, tent cities sprung up throughout the country. On Sunday evening, residents in Tel Aviv’s poorest neighborhood set up a tent city as well. The area, which includes the neighborhoods of Neve Sha’anan, HaTikva, Shapira, and Florentin, are known for being the home of low-income families, single-parent households, and most recently, refugees and migrants workers.
(SUBTITLED TRANSL.): Just come tonight to the park. We’ll organize something. We should just announce that on the streets. Rami will organize the caretakers for children. Facebook and Twitter–Ofir and Ronen will invite people. The kitchen, Ali and Amalia.
TARACHANSKY: At 4:30 in the morning, patrols from the Ministry of the Environment removed the tents and confiscated them. Of all the tent cities throughout the country, this is the only one to be evicted.
(SUBTITLED TRANSL.): Tomorrow there will be 50 tents here–50, not ten! It’s the only tent city to be evicted in the middle of the night. And their claim is racist–because there was one Sudanese refugee who slept in the tents. That was their claim.
(SUBTITLED TRANSL.): I don’t arrest them. I don’t arrest them. I won’t allow people to build a tent and the next day there’s a whole housing unit.
(SUBTITLED TRANSL.): He said explicitly that we are being removed because we supposedly overstepped the agreement, because refugees slept in the tents, our refugee friends and drug addict neighbors with whom we live every day. And that’s our decision to live together with them. They’re not allowed to sleep in our tents. It’s a form of apartheid: only the citizen Jews can sleep in tents; the rest can sleep on the grass.
(SUBTITLED TRANSL.): And he gave me a fine! A fine for erecting a tent.
End of Transcript
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