​(Communicated by the Prime Minister's Media Adviser)

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, this morning (Wednesday, 3 January 2018), at the start of the weekly Cabinet meeting, made the following remarks:
 
"Every country must guard its borders. Guarding the borders against illegal infiltration is both a right and a fundamental obligation of a sovereign state. To this end, we carried out two good actions.
 
The first is building fences, the barrier, against the massive infiltration into the country from Africa. This fence, which was erected along the border with Sinai, has prevented – in my estimation – the entry of hundreds of thousands of infiltrators who came from other places, but did not reach Israel. Thanks to this great effort, we have lowered illegal infiltration into Israel to zero.
 
Now there is another mission. The second mission is to deport the illegal infiltrators who entered Israel prior to the construction of the barrier. This is approximately 60,000 people; we have deported approximately 20,000 and the mission now is to deport the rest. Last year we deported approximately 4,000 and the major effort is to deport most of those who remain, who have infiltrated and are present in Israel illegally.
 
Today we are submitting to the Cabinet a plan to deport illegal infiltrators and this plan will get underway today.
 
Several months ago I toured south Tel Aviv, along with my fellow ministers, in order to gain an impression. We toured twice, once during the day and afterwards a second time – Aryeh Deri remembers this – at night. I wanted to gain an impression of the situation without it being known that the Prime Minister and senior ministers were arriving; therefore, we made a secret night visit. It is completely clear that one sees things as they are; that one sees the plight of the long-time residents. We went up to their apartments, spoke with them and saw the breakdown of law and order and the sense of personal security. And so today we are doing what we promised – restoring quiet, the sense of personal security and law and order to the residents of south Tel Aviv and also those of many other neighborhoods.
 
Today the Cabinet will approve the plan for deporting the infiltrators from Israel. We will step up enforcement and we will allocate budgets and personnel to implement the plan. I think that it is important that people understand that we are doing something here that is completely legal and completely essential.
 
The infiltrators have a clear choice – cooperate with us and leave voluntarily, respectably, humanely and legally, or we will have to use other tools at our disposal, which are also according to law. I hope that they will choose to cooperate with us.
 
I would like to thank the ministers who joined in advancing this important decision. The Interior Minister, the Finance Minister, the Public Security Minister and also the head of the National Security Council, Meir, I thank you for coordinating this important work, and thank you all for the cooperation among your ministries. I think that we are doing something very important to solve a very painful problem.
 
I must also commend, and I must also point out, the cooperation. There was coordinated work by all ministries, all of them, Finance, Interior, Public Security, Justice and the Prime Minister's Office. I would like to thank you again, Meir, for your quiet and incisive work.
 
I am pleased that we are getting underway; this problem will be solved. Israel is, in effect, one of the only countries in the world that has succeeded in taking control of this phenomenon, and this has become more vital, and not less, in the restless world in which we live."