Tel Aviv, January 5 (RHC)-- Israel's government has ordered thousands of African migrants to leave the country within 90 days or face arrest.  The plan was announced as Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu called the migrants "infiltrators" during a Cabinet meeting on Wednesday. 
 
Most of the estimated 40,000 migrants in Israel are refugees from Eritrea and Sudan fleeing war and persecution, although Israel considers them economic migrants. 

Meanwhile, members of Israel's parliament, the Knesset, erupted in a shouting match, as Prime Minister Netanyahu and right-wing lawmakers advanced legislation that would make it easier to carry out death sentences against Palestinians convicted on terrorism charges.  Capital punishment is legal in Israel but has not been implemented since 1962, when Nazi leader Adolf Eichmann was put to death for his role in the Holocaust.