The Hatikva neighborhood of south Tel Aviv has filled with more and more illegal infiltrators in recent years. Currently, there over 50,000 foreign workers living in the neighborhood, with almost 40,000 being illegal infiltrators from Eritrea and Sudan, according to Shlomo Maslawi, a member of the Tel Aviv municipality and chairman of the Hatikva neighborhood’s committee.

Maslawi spoke to Maariv about the situation in the Hatikva neighborhood, with an increasingly high number of foreign workers being diagnosed with the coronavirus in recent days. “The elderly are again stuck at home, afraid to venture out,” he said. “They didn’t leave their homes during the lockdown and now they’re forced to stay at home again.”

“We warned that there wasn’t enough testing and enforcement,” Maslawi said. “Now we’re seeing the results.”

According to an Arutz Sheva report last month, Jewish residents of south Tel Aviv complained during the lockdown that the infiltrators in the neighborhood completely ignored the health ministry’s guidelines, continuing with their normal routines and holding gatherings.

Sheffi Paz, a resident of the neighborhood and an activist against illegal infiltration told Maariv: “We’re very worried about the virus spreading…there’s almost no building without foreign workers and infiltators.”

Paz added that since the coronavirus crisis began, they have complained, warned and begged authorities to enforce regulations among the infiltrators but the authorities paid no attention to them.

Following reports of a virus outbreak among foreign workers in Tel Aviv, 157 workers were tested for the virus at a “pop-up” testing station in south Tel Aviv on Sunday.

Dozens of more workers wanted to get tested but were turned away after the test kits at the site ran out but were told to return on Monday.

(YWN Israel Desk – Jerusalem)