Mass deportation feared after West Bank permit ruling
The Israeli army is to enact a ruling that could leave tens of thousands of Palestinians vulnerable to deportation from the West Bank, human rights groups have claimed.
A coalition of ten Israeli groups appealed to the Defence Ministry not to enact the military order, due to come into effect tomorrow, that would define anyone in the West Bank who does not hold an Israeli permit as an “infiltrator”.
Those without a permit would be liable to seven years in prison and the cost of their deportation from the West Bank — most likely to the Gaza Strip.
“Most of the people there don’t have any permit at all. It’s a question of how the permit is defined, and it’s not defined at present,” said Elad Cahana, a lawyer acting for HaMoked, one of the rights groups.
They believe that the main target is tens of thousands of Palestinians whose original addresses are registered in the Gaza Strip, but who have lived for many years in the West Bank in areas administered by the Palestinian Authority. Others include those of Palestinian descent who have either married West Bank residents or have been reunited with families there, as well as international activists such as the International Solidarity Movement, whose members often accompany Palestinians on protests and demonstrations.
“There’s an estimated 25,000 people in the West Bank whose homes are registered in Gaza, and tens of thousands more who don’t have ID cards at all: people of Palestinian descent who have been applying for them,” said Sari Bashi, of Gisha, another group.
“Israel has territorial claims in the West Bank, and is implementing ... draconian policies to empty the West of Palestinians,” she said. The groups said in a statement that the orders were worded so broadly that they theoretically allowed the military “to empty the West Bank of almost all its Palestinian inhabitants” because most have never been required to hold any permit.
They also said that “despite the severe ramifications of the orders, the authorities did not publicise their existence among the Palestinian population as required, which raises grave concerns that they intended to pass them secretly without public debate or judicial review.”
The Palestinian Authority issued a furious denunciation of the plans, which it said threatened to “turn Palestinians into criminals in their own homes”.
“These military orders belong in an apartheid state,” said Saeb Erakat, a senior official. “Most of all, they reveal the invidious design behind Israel’s settlement policy.
“The fewer Palestinians there are in the West Bank, including in occupied East Jerusalem, the more settlers there will be. Israel’s endgame is not peace. It is the colonisation of the West Bank.”
The Israeli army said that the aim was the extradition of those residing illegally in Judea and Samaria [Israel’s term for the West Bank]. “This is a pre-existing order, which was corrected to assure judicial oversight of the extradition process,” it said.
But Rights groups said that the orders failed to define what constituted a valid permit, leaving it open to the interpretation of the army.
“The vast majority of people now living in the West Bank have never been required to hold any sort of permit to be present therein,” they said.
The Israeli army has already deported a number of Palestinians from Gaza who rights groups argue were living legally in the West Bank.
One of them was Berlanty Azzam, a 22-year-old studying business at Bethlehem University who was picked up at an Israeli checkpoint while travelling from a job interview between two Palestinian Authority areas of the West Bank last year.
She was immediately deported to the Gaza Strip despite military assurances to her lawyer that she would not be removed until an Israeli judge had heard her case.
When Gisha finally managed to bring the case before the Supreme Court, Ms Azzam’s request to return to Bethlehem was denied and the army had taken away and “lost” her original 2005 permit to cross Israel and enter the West Bank, Ms Bashi said. She is still living in Gaza.
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/world/middle_east/article7094854.ece
Buy on AliExpress.com
Report that shit.
