DIMONA, Israel: Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said on Tuesday that an electronic fence along the Israel-Egypt border has saved the Jewish state from extremist attacks or what he believes would be worse — a tide of African migrants.
“Were it not for the fence, we would be faced with ... severe attacks by Sinai terrorists, and something much worse, a flood of illegal migrants from Africa,” Netanyahu’s office quoted him as telling a development conference in the southern Israel desert town of Dimona.
The interior ministry says there are currently some 42,000 African migrants in Israel, mainly from Sudan and Eritrea, and the government has ordered that thousands of them must leave or face indefinite imprisonment.
They began slipping into Israel illegally in 2007 through what was then a porous border with Egypt’s lawless Sinai region.
The frontier with Israel’s Negev desert has since been given a 200-kilometer (124 mile) hi-tech fence and the influx has halted.
Netanyahu said a tide of non-Jewish immigration would threaten the very fabric of Israel.
“We are talking about a Jewish and democratic state, but how could we assure a Jewish and democratic state with 50,000 and then 100,000 and 150,000 migrants a year,” Netanyahu said.
“After a million, 1.5 million, we might as well shut up shop,” he added. “We did not close down, we built a fence.”
Today the mountainous Sinai is a battleground between the Egyptian army and Daesh extremists.
The army launched a campaign on February 9 after Egyptian President Abdel Fattah El-Sisi, who is standing in elections this month for a second term, gave it a three-month deadline to crush Daesh in the Sinai.
Sissi issued his ultimatum in November after suspected Daesh gunmen killed more than 300 worshippers at a Sinai mosque associated with Sufi Muslim mystics.
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Netanyahu says African migrants worse threat than extremists
Netanyahu says African migrants worse threat than extremists
Syria begins circulating new post-Assad currency bills
- Presidential decree said new Syrian currency will be issued by removing two zeros from the nominal value of the old currency
- Central Bank govenor says Syrians can now exchange old Syrian pounds with new banknotes
DAMASCUS, Syria: Syria started the process of circulating new currency bills on Saturday as the nation seeks to stabilize the economy as it recovers from the fall of Bashar Assad’s government.
A decree issued earlier this week by President Ahmad Al-Sharaa said that “old Syrian currency” will be gradually withdrawn from circulation according to a timetable set by the central bank and through designated exchange centers.
Central Bank Governor Mokhles Nazer posted on X that after months of preparations, the exchange of old Syrian pounds with new banknotes officially began Saturday morning.
The presidential decree posted on the SANA state news agency stipulates that “new Syrian currency” will be issued by removing two zeros from the nominal value of the old currency. It means every 100 Syrian pounds of the old currency will now equate to one Syrian pound.
The largest denomination of the old currency was 5,000 Syrian pound, while under the new currency it is 500 pounds.
The US dollar was selling at exchange shops in Damascus on Saturday for 11,800 pounds for the old banknotes, some of which bear the images of Assad and his late father and predecessor, Hafez Assad.
At the start of Syria’s conflict in mid-March 2011, the US dollar was worth 47 Syrian pounds.
Since insurgent groups led by Al-Sharaa’s Hayat Tahrir Al-Sham marched into Damascus in December 2024 to end the Assad family’s 54-year rule, work has been ongoing by the country’s new authorities to improve the economy battered by years of war and Western sanctions.
The US and the European Union have removed most of the sanctions imposed on Syria during Assad’s rule.
A decree issued earlier this week by President Ahmad Al-Sharaa said that “old Syrian currency” will be gradually withdrawn from circulation according to a timetable set by the central bank and through designated exchange centers.
Central Bank Governor Mokhles Nazer posted on X that after months of preparations, the exchange of old Syrian pounds with new banknotes officially began Saturday morning.
The presidential decree posted on the SANA state news agency stipulates that “new Syrian currency” will be issued by removing two zeros from the nominal value of the old currency. It means every 100 Syrian pounds of the old currency will now equate to one Syrian pound.
The largest denomination of the old currency was 5,000 Syrian pound, while under the new currency it is 500 pounds.
The US dollar was selling at exchange shops in Damascus on Saturday for 11,800 pounds for the old banknotes, some of which bear the images of Assad and his late father and predecessor, Hafez Assad.
At the start of Syria’s conflict in mid-March 2011, the US dollar was worth 47 Syrian pounds.
Since insurgent groups led by Al-Sharaa’s Hayat Tahrir Al-Sham marched into Damascus in December 2024 to end the Assad family’s 54-year rule, work has been ongoing by the country’s new authorities to improve the economy battered by years of war and Western sanctions.
The US and the European Union have removed most of the sanctions imposed on Syria during Assad’s rule.
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