According to IDF data, in 2019, 120 infiltration incidents on the Jordanian border were dealt with, compared with 13 in 2018 and only 10 in 2017.
In 2019, the number of infiltration incidents into Israel from the Jordanian border jumped tenfold, compared to the two years before.
This is clear from IDF data obtained by Israel Today, following a petition by the Center for Israeli Immigration Policy to the Tel Aviv District Court.
Photo: Spokeswoman for the Jordan Valley Regional Council
After the IDF Spokesman refused to provide the data for nearly a year, details were provided to the center under the Freedom of Information Law, indicating the significant increase in the number of infiltration incidents into Israel from the Jordanian border.
While in 2017 only 10 infiltration incidents were identified by IDF forces and in 2018 13 incidents were identified, in 2019 their number jumped to 120.
The numbers indicate the number of cases, not the number of infiltrators.
Since many of the incidents are not individual infiltrators but groups, it can be estimated that there are many hundreds of infiltrators.
"Smuggling expands"
Along with the increase in the number of incidents identified, there has been a decline in the rate of attempts thwarted by the military.
If in 2018 10 of 13 events were thwarted, ie 77 percent of the events, in 2019 only 81 of the 120 events were thwarted - only 68 percent.
It can be assumed that there are a significant number of other cases that were not detected by the IDF at all.
As reported in "Israel Today", this phenomenon first became known from the monitoring of the decisions of the Custody Tribunal, where hearings began regarding infiltrators arrested by Population Authority inspectors within Israel only a few months or years after infiltrating through the Jordanian border.
Most of the infiltrators who were caught and taken into custody came from Turkey.
Almost all of them entered Israel in the past as foreign workers or as tourists and were deported after an illegal stay, before deciding to return to infiltrating Israel.
Some even tried to return to Israel after being deported and rejected.
This is a pattern similar to the beginning of the infiltration phenomenon from the Egyptian border, which at its peak reached close to 2,000 Eritrean and Sudanese infiltrators a month.
There, too, the smuggling and infiltration routes originally created were used mainly for infiltrators from other countries, such as China, Georgia and Turkey.
Advocate Yonatan Jakubowicz of the Center for Israeli Immigration Policy: "Past experience shows that once smuggling networks become established, they are expanding both in the numbers and in the countries of origin of the infiltrators.
Since the border has been completely breached in the Arava and no fence is expected to be built, it is clear that there is nothing to prevent a renewed flood of infiltrators, even from the Africa Fund.
The state must prosecute new infiltrators and re-enact the law to prevent infiltration, in order to eliminate the incentive to infiltrate the State of Israel. "
