Israel is reportedly preparing to deport hundreds of Palestinian citizens of Israel and residents from East Jerusalem to Palestinian Authority areas, citing alleged ties to ‘terrorism’.
The Anadolu news agency reported that, according to Israeli Army Radio, Tel Aviv is “on the verge of deporting hundreds of Israeli Arabs and residents of East Jerusalem who have been convicted of terrorism to the Palestinian Authority territories, with some of them set to be deported in the coming months.”
While Palestinian citizens of Israel hold Israeli citizenship, Palestinians in Occupied East Jerusalem have permanent resident status.
The decision to deport Palestinian citizens of Israel comes, according to the radio, after a modification to the Citizenship Law issued last February. The radio station noted that the law has not been applied so far because there was a legal problem in revoking the citizenship of people who do not have another nationality.
Israel is about to deport hundreds of Jerusalemite Palestinians and 48 Palestinians to the West Bank. And Israel keeps claiming it is not an apartheid state… https://t.co/3SnbYP6PNR pic.twitter.com/6G1GoXgwhP
— B.M. (@ireallyhateyou) January 4, 2024
There are 18 candidates for deportation initially, and Israel’s Interior Minister is supposed to sign the decision, with Justice Minister Yariv Levin supposed to approve it, the report said.
According to the media report, Palestinian citizens of Israel have only “one week left to appeal to the court.”
The Israeli Knesset (parliament) approved the second and third readings of a bill on February 15, 2023, to revoke the citizenship or cancel the residency of a prisoner receiving financial allocations from the Palestinian Authority, Anadolu reported.
In response to the law, the Adalah Arab Human Rights Center in Israel said in a statement that “Opposition parties and coalition members in the Israeli Knesset today teamed up to pass an additional racist law against Palestinians.”
(PC, Anadolu)
