Israel prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu rejects calls to admit Syrian refugees

Israeli leader warns against "terror and infiltrators" in response to opposition calls for Jewish state to intervene in Europe's worst refugee crisis since Second World War.

 Benjamin Netanyahu has rejected calls by opposition MPs for Israel to accept refugees fleeing Syria's civil war, saying it would open the doors to terrorists.

The Israeli prime minister's comments followed pleas to step into Europe's burgeoning refugee crisis from Left-wing parliamentarians who argued that the plight of desperate migrants evoked the Jews' history of having to wander in search of safe havens.

"Israel is not indifferent to the human tragedy of the refugees from Syria and Africa," Mr Netanyahu told Sunday's cabinet meeting. "But Israel is a small country, a very small country, that lacks demographic and geographic depth; therefore, we must control our borders, against both illegal migrants and terrorism.

"We will not allow Israel to be submerged by a wave of illegal migrants and terrorist activists."

Far from welcoming refugees, he said Israel would shortly begin the first 18-mile phase of a secure border fence to seal off the country's frontier with Jordan.

The appeal for intervention was led by Isaac Herzog, leader of the main opposition Zionist Union, who told a panel discussion in Tel Aviv that "Jews could not be indifferent" while thousands of refugees sought shelter.

"I call on the government of Israel to act toward receiving refugees from the war in Syria, in addition to the humanitarian efforts it is already making," Mr Herzog said, referring to the estimated 1,700 Syrians who have received medical treatment in Israel since the Syrian conflict began in 2011.

The call was backed by several other politicians, including Zehava Galon, leader of the Left-wing Meretz party but criticised by centrists and Right-wingers. Among them was Yair Lapid, leader of the pro-secular Yesh Atid party, who suggested it would be opening a backdoor to a "right-of-return" for Palestinian refugees – a major sticking point in stalled peace talks between Israel and the Palestinians.



In a further development, Mahmoud Abbas, the Palestinian Authority leader, called on the United Nations to pressure Israel to allow Palestinians from Syrian refugees camps to take shelter in the occupied West Bank – territory the Palestinians claim as part of a future state.

Israel has already been criticised by the United Nations High Commission for Refugees over its treatment of tens of thousands of African asylum seekers, most of them fleeing wars in Eritrea, Sudan and South Sudan.

Only a handful of more than 50,000 refugees to have entered Israel through its southern border with Egypt since 2006 have received asylum status, while others have been repatriated to other African countries in a scheme that Israel claims is voluntary but critics call coercive.

Several thousand have been detained at a holding facility in Holot in the Negev desert. Israel says the facility is open but campaigners have criticised it as little more than a de facto prison.