“We don’t know what to do,” one demonstrator said.
“We went to the mask station in Tel Aviv, but they turned us down. They said there are no masks for us. Nobody told us where to go, what to do or how to protect ourselves.”
Meretz Knesset member Dedi Zucker, who organized the demonstration, said there are some 5,000 Africans and 5,000 South Americans in Tel Aviv illegally.
They have been working in Israel for several years and many have families here, but are not recognized by the authorities.
Zucker said that although the immigrants may not have permits to work here, they have the right to be protected in case of a conventional or non-conventional missile attack.
“These people are terrified of a missile attack, and most of them were even afraid to demonstrate here for fear the authorities would crack down and deport them,” Zucker said.
But Haifa’s Histadrut chairman, Baruch Saltz, called on the government not to distribute gas masks to illegal workers, due to the shortage of masks and their high cost.
“The government doesn’t have to subsidize masks for hundreds of thousands of foreign workers who sneaked into the country like thieves in the night and are taking jobs from Israelis, who, as a result, are unemployed,” Saltz said.
He suggested that the government take this opportunity to solve the illegal alien problem and deport them.
In another development, dozens of elderly Safed residents protested the closure of the town’s gas mask distribution center.
The IDF published notices instructing the residents, including many who are too old or sick to travel, to go to Kiryat Shmona or Karmiel for masks.
The Safed station is due to reopen in three months, according to a statement from the Home Front Command.
It adds that any bearded man, whether religious or secular, is entitled to a special gas mask, in accordance with a decision by the High Court of Justice just over a year ago, the IDF spokesman said Sunday.
However, because there is currently a shortage of batteries for these special masks, anyone without a such mask will be given a regular mask temporarily, and will be summoned for a full “bearded” kit as soon as it becomes available, the statement said.