[News] Palestinians deported to Gaza

[Anti-Imperialist News]

Palestinians deported to Gaza

Thursday, April 22, 2010
http://english.aljazeera.net/news/middleeast/2010/04/2010422124915701529.html

Two Palestinians have been deported to the Gaza Strip from Israel, 
raising fears that more expulsions could follow under a controversial 
new Israeli military order.

After nine years in Israeli jail, Ahmad Sabah, a 40-year- old 
Palestinian, was sent to Gaza, instead of being released to the West 
Bank where his family was waiting for him.

Israelis sent him to Gaza because he had a Palestinian ID issued there.

His family said that Sabah, who was arrested in 2001 for "security 
offences" against Israel, has no connection to Gaza and he has 
refused to leave the border crossing in protest at his treatment.

"It is my right to return to my wife and family," he said.

'Inhumane policy'

The Israeli move drew condemnation from Palestinian political 
leaders, who denounced Sabah's deportation as "inhumane".

Issa Qaraqi, the minister of prisoner affairs in the government 
of  Palestinian president Mahmoud Abbas, said that Sabah should have 
been released to the West Bank.

"He has no connection to Gaza, no relatives there, nothing."

He said that the deportation was an example of Israel invoking the 
controversial new military orders that allow "illegal" residents of 
the West Bank to be expelled.

Sabah's case follows that of Saber Albayari, who was deported to Gaza 
after seeking medical treatment in an Israeli hospital on Wednesday.

Albayari had been living in Israel for the past 15 years, but was 
returned to Gaza when Israeli authorities discovered that he had been 
born there.

Some fear that the expulsions could be the first in a wave of 
deportations of Palestinians from Israel and the West Bank.

Up to 70,000 Palestinians could be at risk of deportation under the 
military order, which has been roundly condemned by Arab politicians.

Last week President Abbas vowed to confront the order. "Israel has no 
right to deport any Palestinian, and the Palestinian Authority will 
not allow it and will confront it with various means."

Al Jazeera's Jackie Rowland, reporting from Jerusalem, said that the 
individual stories put a human face on what is a deliberate strategy 
by Israel to treat the West Bank and Gaza differently.

"It fits into a pattern of Israel's strategy to treat Gaza and the 
West Bank as separate geopoliticial entities," she said.




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