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South Tel Aviv: 1 killed, 20 arrested in Eritrean migrant brawl

“It’s like Rafah here,” said an Israeli man filming the clashes.

By World Israel News Staff

Massive street brawls between rival groups of Eritrean migrants in South Tel Aviv overnight Sunday left one man dead and five others seriously wounded, with at least 20 arrested by local police.

“Following a report of a fight and riots, which included the throwing of stones, the use of clubs and spikes on HaHagana Street by a number of suspects of Eritrean origin, large forces of police and security forces were rushed to the scene, and began to disperse the rioters,” Tel Aviv police said in a media statement.

“From the scene of the incident, Magen David Adom first-responder medical teams evacuated a number of wounded people with varying degrees of injury to the Ichilov Medical Center, where the death of one of those involved was determined at the hospital. More arrests are expected.”

Social media footage from the scene showed dozens of Eritrean men in the streets, fighting and hurling projectiles at each other.

“It’s like Rafah here,” said an Israeli man filming the clashes.

In September 2023, Eritrean government supporters and opponents clashed with each other and with Israeli police outside the Eritrean embassy in Tel Aviv.

Eritreans armed with construction lumber, pieces of metal, rocks and at least one axe, tore through a neighborhood of south Tel Aviv where many asylum seekers live.

Protesters smashed shop windows and police cars, and blood spatter was seen on sidewalks. One government supporter was found lying in a puddle of blood in a children’s playground.

It was the most violent street confrontations among African asylum seekers and migrants in Tel Aviv in recent memory.

Among those hurt were 50 police officers and more than 160 Eritreans, who suffered gunshot and knife wounds, as well as other injuries.

The fighting left some 200 people wounded, including a police officer who needed brain surgery after sustaining a serious head injury.

Weeks after that riot, an Eritrean man was stabbed to death and at least 10 others were wounded in brawls throughout Israel.