“I entered [Israel] on Tuesday, along the border with Lebanon. … I was helped by someone named Abu Abdo. He is a smuggler, who told me where I could get in and took me halfway there. I walked the rest of the way on my own. When I got to the fence, I crossed it alone. I continued walking for another half hour, before someone saw me, brought me water, and called the army. … They called the Nahariya Police Department, which interrogated me at the immigration division. Then, at court, they gave me papers. … Once I was released, I walked to my brother in Tel Aviv. I traveled from Sudan to Syria, and from there, I went to Lebanon. I wasn’t tortured. I wasn’t hurt. I’m healthy.”

This story was told by Muhammad Abshar Abakar, a 25-year-old Sudanese refugee who was caught in January after crossing Israel’s northern border. Two weeks later, he was brought before the custody court in the Givon holding facility. Abakar said he worked as a dishwasher at a restaurant in Beirut. He said that after the eatery was shut down, he decided to sneak into Israel and find work at a restaurant in the north.

Abakar may be the first refugee who has been able to get across one of the most heavily guarded borders in the Middle East (the border between Israel and Lebanon) and arrive safely in Israel. Others followed in his wake, apparently because he eventually found work in Tel Aviv after spending nearly three months in custody. Rumors about him spread like wildfire, and dozens of others tried to get across. The way things look now, the flow across the northern border is likely to intensify.

 On May 3, a group of five Sudanese attempted to cross the border. They were caught and sent back to Lebanon. On May 17, an IDF force following a routine near Har Dov saw a Syrian attempting to enter the country. He was shot and taken to a hospital in Israel in critical condition. On May 19, the IDF caught two suspects of Sudanese origin who crossed from Lebanon into Israeli territory. Just one day earlier, IDF troops located several holes in the border fence. The suspicion is that these were made by people attempting to enter the country. According to a Channel 2 report, 13 Sudanese migrant workers attempted to cross the Lebanese border into Israel near the agricultural village of Shetula on May 30. Three were caught by the Israel Defense Forces (IDF), while 10 were caught by the Lebanese army.