100 Homeless Israelis Evicted From Tent City

Police Monday evicted about 100 homeless Israelis from a tent camp set up to protest Israel’s severe housing shortage.

It was the first time that authorities had evicted people living in tent cities. About 2,000 Israelis are living in such camps around the country to protest a housing shortage and skyrocketing rents resulting from the influx of Soviet Jews.

Police detained five people who rioted when a backhoe arrived and demolished several stone and wood huts in a camp in the Tel Aviv neighborhood of Bnei Brak, said police spokeswoman Aviv Ivri.

Reuven Berger, a senior official of the Bnei Brak municipality, said the eviction was ordered after some of the 17 homeless families began building such permanent structures on a vacant lot where they had been allowed to pitch tents.

“At that moment, their plight took on the character of squatting and ceased being a protest,” he said.

Berger said the municipality had supplied the homeless camp with electricity, water and even hot meals for the children.

Army radio said that, after the eviction, some of the homeless collected under a shelter in the lot, saying they did not know where they would go.

The housing shortage was sparked several months ago by the influx of Soviet Jews, which has reached about 80,000 this year and may include 70,000 others by January. Many rents have doubled and tripled in Israel as a result of $300 monthly government rent subsidies given to the Soviet Jews.