The Holot detention center or Holot prison was a facility of the

Israel Prison Service Israel (; he, יִשְׂרָאֵל, ; ar, إِسْرَائِيل, ), officially the State of Israel ( he, מְדִינַת יִשְׂרָאֵל, label=none, translit=Medīnat Yīsrāʾēl; ), is a country in Western Asia. It is situated ...

intended for the detention of

illegal immigrants Illegal immigration is the migration of people into a country in violation of the immigration laws of that country or the continued residence without the legal right to live in that country. Illegal immigration tends to be financially upwa ...

from

Eritrea Eritrea ( ; ti, ኤርትራ, Ertra, ; ar, إرتريا, ʾIritriyā), officially the State of Eritrea, is a country in the Horn of Africa region of Eastern Africa, with its capital and largest city at Asmara. It is bordered by Ethiopia ...

and

Sudan Sudan ( or ; ar, السودان, as-Sūdān, officially the Republic of the Sudan ( ar, جمهورية السودان, link=no, Jumhūriyyat as-Sūdān), is a country in Northeast Africa. It shares borders with the Central African Republic t ...

who had been living in Israel after having entered through the

Israel Israel (; he, יִשְׂרָאֵל, ; ar, إِسْرَائِيل, ), officially the State of Israel ( he, מְדִינַת יִשְׂרָאֵל, label=none, translit=Medīnat Yīsrāʾēl; ), is a country in Western Asia. It is situated ...

Egypt Egypt ( ar, مصر , ), officially the Arab Republic of Egypt, is a transcontinental country spanning the northeast corner of Africa and southwest corner of Asia via a land bridge formed by the Sinai Peninsula. It is bordered by the Mediter ...

border prior to the building of the

Egypt–Israel barrier The Egypt–Israel barrier or Egypt–Israel border fence ( he, שְׁעוֹן הַחוֹל, translit=Shaʽon HaḤol, lit=sand clock) refers to a separation barrier built by Israel along its border with Egypt. Initial construction on the ba ...

in 2013. The facility was opened on December 12, 2013, about two kilometers from the Israel–Egypt border, near

Ktzi'ot Prison Ktzi'ot Prison (, ) is an Israeli detention facility located in the Negev desert south-west of Beersheba. It is Israel's largest detention facility in terms of land area, encompassing . It is also the largest detention camp in the world. During ...

and Saharonim Prison. As countries are prohibited under international law from expelling asylum seekers who have already reached another nation, Israel designed Holot as a detention center for refugees as a way to coerce them into requesting to be deported away from Israel. The facility included three wings, each of which for 1,120 inmates, and an administrative wing. In September 2014, the Supreme Court of Israel declared that the facility should be closed, on the ground that Holot infringed on the

human right Human rights are moral principles or normsJames Nickel, with assistance from Thomas Pogge, M.B.E. Smith, and Leif Wenar, 13 December 2013, Stanford Encyclopedia of PhilosophyHuman Rights Retrieved 14 August 2014 for certain standards of hu ...

of "human dignity": “infiltrators do not lose one ounce of their right to human dignity just because they reached the country in this way or another.” After almost four years, on March 14, 2018, the facility was finally closed.

References

{{Prison-stub Immigration detention centers and prisons