Two firebombs were thrown at the Tel Aviv home of African residents on Saturday night, Israeli daily Haaretz reported.
It is the second such attack of its kind in the last two weeks targeting African residents in south Tel Aviv.
In late April, firebombs were thrown at a kindergarten and apartments used by the African community.
A 20-year-old Israeli resident of the neighbourhood was questioned by police about the attacks and a protest took place a day later in the Shapira area to express solidarity with African asylum seekers.
In April 2011, residents of south Tel Aviv marched in the area to demand that the government deport all illegal residents.
Around 40,000 migrant labour workers and over 20,000 asylum seekers live in south Tel Aviv.
In 2010, some 14,735 illegal immigrants, mostly Eritreans, crossed into Israel via the Egyptian border.
In early January, Israel tightened its law on undocumented migrants, including asylum seekers, who now face up to three years’ imprisonment, drawing sharp criticism from refugee groups and activists.
l Meanwhile, Israel’s Supreme Court on Sunday criticised the Israeli government for failing to fulfill its legal obligation to demolish an illegal West Bank settlement.
‘When the state claims it will do something, we do not imagine that it will not be done. There is respect between the branches,’ Justice Uzi Fogelman was quoted as saying during a hearing to discuss the state’s request to delay the decision.
In 2011, Israel’s high court ruled that the neighbourhood of Ulpana in Beit El settlement, near al-Bireh, must be evacuated by May 1, 2012.
Last Friday, the Israeli government asked the Supreme Court for a three-month delay in demolishing five apartment buildings in the settlement.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s coalition government has come under intense pressure from within his own Likud party and from other pro-settler coalition allies to delay the demolition.
One cabinet member, Moshe Yaalon, warned that Netanyahu’s coalition could fall apart if the homes were destroyed.
The government’s request was supported by Israeli Attorney General Yehuda Weinstein and senior officials from the State Prosecutors’ Office.
Lawyer Michael Sfard, who submitted the petition for Palestinian landowners, said the government’s request to delay the decision was tantamount to contempt of court.
About 500,000 Israeli settlers and 2.5 million Palestinians live in the West Bank and East Jerusalem, areas Israel captured in the 1967 war. All settlements are illegal under international law.
l Meanwhile, Israeli troops arrested three Palestinian university students from the Najah university in Nablus including the son of MP Omar Abdul Razek.
Local witnesses said that the soldiers arrested Mohammed Abdul Razek, the son of the detained Hamas MP and former finance minister, from his home in Salfit and two of his colleagues from their residence in Nablus city at dawn on Sunday.
The MP’s wife said that Israeli soldiers encircled their home in Salfit city at 0200 am local time and blasted their front door.
She described the troops’ break and entry as savage.
She said that the soldiers searched the house using police dogs and confiscated three personal computers and a number of mobile phones before taking away her son Mohammed.
The wife said that her son was expected to complete his university studies in economics in two weeks, adding that he was held in Israeli custody for three months last year.
l Former Fatah fighter Zakaria Zubeidi said on Sunday that he was not arrested by Palestinian National Authority forces in Jenin, as mothers in the city protested against a sweep of arrests by PNA forces.
Israeli media reported on Saturday that Zubeidi was arrested by PNA forces as part of the security crackdown in the northern West Bank city.
The former leader of the Al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigades in Jenin confirmed that he was not arrested in the campaign, which saw dozens detained overnight.
Zubeidi led the Fatah-affiliated brigades during some of the fiercest fighting of the intifada, or uprising, and was wanted by Israel for many years before authorities granted pardons to hundreds of Fatah militants in 2007.
Jenin Security Commander Radi Asida said on Sunday that security services were looking for suspects in a gun attack on the home of late Jenin governor Qaddura Musa, who died from a heart attack on Wednesday after the incident.
Suspects in murder cases, extortion and assaults were also being pursued, Asida said.
Dozens of mothers demonstrated near Jenin’s security compound on Sunday in protest against the crackdown by PNA forces, witnesses said.
Protesters held signs calling for the release of their sons and chanted slogans criticising the PNA.
The northern West Bank city of Jenin became known as a centre for Palestinian fighters during the second intifada, with many militant groups launching attacks on Israeli targets from the Jenin refugee camp.
In April 2011, Juliano Mer-Khamis, the General-Director of the Freedom Theatre, was killed in Jenin.
Unknown gunmen inside the city’s refugee camp opened fire on his car, Jenin police said at the time.
Zubeidi and Mer-Khamis co-founded the Freedom Theatre.
• Six Egyptian soldiers were kidnapped by armed Bedouins in the Sinai peninsula on Saturday, before being released shortly afterward, Egyptian officials said.
The soldiers were abducted at gunpoint while on guard 5km from the Egyptian-Israeli border after masked gunmen arrived in two jeeps with unmarked number plates.
Egypt’s army deployed dozens of armoured tanks in the area, forcing the Bedouin gunmen to release the soldiers.
Sinai Bedouin complain of unfair treatment and government neglect and press their demands by blocking roads and occasionally taking tourists hostage, releasing them soon afterward following negotiations with the authorities.
Such incidents have become more frequent since the overthrow of Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak last year loosened the grip of state security in the isolated Sinai.
Eight people have been killed in clashes in the Sinai in the past month.
