Mostly coming from Eritrea and Sudan, they hope to obtain asylum in Israel in greater numbers than in previous years after turmoil in Libya in 2011 made the route through Libya to Europe nearly impossible.

Israel has recognised fewer than 1 per cent of asylum claims, the lowest percentage in the Western world, and has been notoriously sluggish in assessing asylum claims. It granted refugee status to only one Sudanese and to a handful of Eritreans. The overwhelming majority remain in a vulnerable situation, in constant fear of detention, forced deportation and under pressure to be "voluntarily" deported.

According to international law, countries cannot deport asylum seekers without first assessing their individual asylum claims to determine if refugee status is applicable. For Israel to be able to forcefully deport ineligible asylum seekers in greater numbers, it would also have to start assessing more asylum requests and so grant refugee status to those with legitimate claims.

According to the Israeli NGO Assaf, Eritreans and Sudanese, who comprise 90 per cent of the asylum-seeking population in Israel, receive relatively high recognition rates as refugees around the world (88 and 64 per cent respectively). However, the current rate of refugee status recognition in Israel is 0.2 per cent.

Instead of assessing each individual claim for refugee status, as the non-profit Right Now explains, Israel groups asylum seekers from Eritrea and Sudan under a policy of "temporary collective protection". With this, Israel "acknowledges the danger in these two countries and does not deport asylum seekers there. Asylum seekers are given deferred deportation orders, making their stay in Israel legal."

However, this is not refugee status and so "does not allow them access to formal work permits, health care or welfare services. Asylum seekers are thus stuck in a legal limbo; while allowed to remain in the country, they lack the necessary access to survive, advance and integrate."

Israel argues that the purpose of its existence is to absorb Jewish migrants and refugees, and that many other countries can absorb non-Jewish refugees with better chances at successful integration. Officials, including Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, label African asylum seekers "infiltrators" whose presence could threaten Israel's "existence as a Jewish and democratic state" and argue almost all are economic migrants and so do not need asylum.

It is a widely held view. In 2012, some 86 per cent of Israelis polled said they viewed African migrants as "a danger to Israel". However, in a ruling on a detention facility for asylum seekers, Israeli Supreme Court justice Edna Arbel stated that "studies show the crime level among African migrants is lower than that of [Israeli] society in general".

Asylum seekers and Israeli activists say the measures are meant to break their spirits into accepting $US3500 from the Israeli government's "voluntary deportation" scheme. This involves being deported to an undisclosed country where safety - especially from being deported to their country of origin, where they face imprisonment and death - is far from guaranteed. Reports indicate Uganda and Rwanda have received arms, military training, agricultural assistance or money for taking in Israel's unwanted asylum seekers.

The decision to leave Israel is often the culmination of a painful road that begins much earlier on. After many are tortured and imprisoned during their quest for asylum, upon arrival in Israel many are ordered, without trial, to spend as much as a year in the Holot detention facility in the Negev desert. The camp is an "open prison" where inmates can go out, but must be back before the 10pm headcount or face transfer to a closed prison. Any single male asylum seeker under the age of 60 can be arbitrarily sent to Holot.

Europe seems to be indirectly employing similar punitive policies to those favoured by Israel and Australia, with Greece becoming the European equivalent to Australia's offshore island prisons and dragging its feet in helping process asylum seekers' applications, condemning thousands to uncertainty.

Hungary is detaining asylum seekers in closed camps surrounded with razor wire. Germany recently announced plans to offer up to ???1200 ($1780) each to asylum seekers to voluntarily return home.

In a historic analysis of the 1938 Evian conference, at which countries from around the world gathered in France to discuss the plight of Jewish refugees on the cusp of World War II, Imogen Wall explains that a "key concern was the destabilising effect that large numbers of refugees might have on society, driven by the perception that they would be unable to assimilate, a notion that is still front and centre of the current debate over the Syrian refugee crisis. 'We have no real racial problem,' declared the Australian representative at Evian, T.W. White. 'We are not desirous of importing one'."

But, Wall adds, "today's politicians, in addition to operating in the post-1951 framework of international humanitarian law regarding refugees, have access to a wealth of data and analysis that their 1938 counterparts did not, particularly that assimilation is possible and that refugees tend to bring net economic benefits".

"One key lesson from Evian", she concludes, is that "failing to tackle a mass refugee problem is a decision that is neither neutral nor without consequences."