Israeli protesters attack Sudanese migrants in Tel Aviv

Hundreds of protesters gathered in Tel Aviv to protest against the large African population in Israel. The protest, organized by an Israeli parliament member and far-right Israeli activists, eventually turned violent, and 17 demonstrators were arrested, Haaretz reported.

The crowd cheered that "The people want the Sudanese deported" and "infiltrators get out of our home." Miri Regev, the Israeli parliament member who helped organize the protest, said that "the Sudanese were a cancer in our body," according to Haaretz. 

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The Guardian reported that about 1,000 people had joined the protest by Wednesday night. An Israeli journalist told the Guardian that the protest turned ugly when, "suddenly one of [the protesters] noticed that in one of the cars waiting for traffic to move were two young dark-skinned men." The reporter said that the enraged protesters then attacked the car, smashing the windows with rocks and kicking it. "Within minutes, they dismantled – there is no other word to describe it – the car and its passengers," the reporter told the Guardian. 

Figures from 2011 show that there are 52,487 illegal African immigrants in Israel, the Associated Press reported. The protest follows Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's warning last Sunday about "illegal infiltrators flooding the country," Jerusalem Post reported.