CBNNews.com - JERUSALEM, Israel - At Sunday's Cabinet meeting, Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert said thousands of African refugees would be deported from Israel by the end of the week.

Public Security Minister Avi Dichter said more than 7,000 Africans entered Israel from Egypt in the past 14 months.

Olmert instructed the Foreign Ministry to contact the refugees' countries of origin to work out the details of their deportation and to ensure they would not be endangered by returning to their homeland.

According to The Jerusalem Post, the prime minister initially proposed allowing Israeli soldier to open fire on the refugees, but later opted for crowd control devices and non-lethal weapons.

In August 2007, Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak allowed 48 refugees, 18 of whom were children, to re-enter Egypt a day after they crossed the border into Israel.

Five of the refugees were returned to Sudan, where they were jailed for entering Israel, the "enemy" state. The whereabouts of most of the remaining 43 are unknown to this day.

Israel extended asylum to 600 Sudanese refugees from Darfur, granting them temporary residence. More than half of the refugees remaining in Israel fled the genocide in Sudan.

Source: The Jerusalem Post