Merhawit, a 34-year-old single mother of two school-aged children is an asylum-seeker from Eritrea. Fleeing war and her violent husband and his abusive family, she came to Israel some 10 years ago, brought by smugglers through Egypt and the Sinai desert, where she was repeatedly raped. 

Today, she lives in downscale south Tel Aviv in a crowded apartment with two other families. Until the coronavirus lockdown, she worked as a cleaner in an office building. She was fired in mid-March and has not been called back.

"I have no money, no income," she told Al-Monitor in a WhatsApp conversation. "How will we survive? What will we do if I get sick?"

There are approximately 30,000 asylum-seekers in Israeli, most of whom, like Merhawit, live in the south Tel Aviv area; the majority of them come from Sudan and Eritrea. According to the 1951 UN Refugee Convention, which Israel has signed, individuals fleeing persecution are entitled to request asylum from the country to which they escaped. The host country is obligated to investigate, on an individual basis, whether the person is indeed entitled to refugee status, according to specific UN-mandated criteria. Refugee status automatically confers residency rights and numerous other benefits; if the individual does not meet the criteria, he or she can be deported.