[News] Israel Admits It Has Canceled Residency Rights of Quarter of a Million Palestinians Since 67

[Anti-Imperialist News]

Israel Admits that It Has Canceled Residency Rights of Quarter of a 
Million of Palestinians Since 67

Published on Tuesday, 12 June 2012 12:28
http://english.pnn.ps/index.php/politics/1898-israel-admits-that-it-has-canceled-the-residency-rights-of-a-quarter-of-a-million-of-palestinians-since-1967


Israel has stripped the residency rights of more than 100,000 
individuals from Gaza and an additional 150,000 from the West Bank in 
the 27 years that have passed between the occupation of the 
Palestinian territories in 1967 and the establishment of the 
Palestinian Authority in 1994.

Haaretz's Hebrew edition published a report that stated that 
approximately 250,000 Palestinians who have left the Palestinian 
territories have been prevented from returning to it.

Population growth in the Palestinian territories is hovering at 3.3% 
as systematic expulsion has reduced the population by more than 10%, 
the bulk of whom are university students, graduates, and the 
self-employed who travel to work outside the country, particularly in 
the countries of the Persian Gulf.

Haaretz reported that the release of this data concerning the right 
of residence in Gaza was in response to the request for the freedom 
of information submitted by HaMoked, the Center for the Defense of 
the Individual.

The Office for the Coordination of Government Activities reports that 
44,730 Gazans have lost their right of residence because they had 
been absent from the region for seven years or more, 54,730 because 
they were not present during the 1981 census, and a further 7,249 
because they were not present during the 1988 census.

The report explained that some 15,000 of the persons who lost their 
residency were aged 90 and older.

In May 2011, Haaretz obtained the numbers of individuals of the West 
Bank who were also stripped of their residency rights. The report 
noted that the Israeli government has worked for years behind the 
scenes in order to do so. For example, Palestinians from the West 
Bank who were leaving to go abroad, for whatever reason, were asked 
to leave their identity card at the crossing. In contrast to those 
from the Gaza Strip, who were allowed to leave for seven years, these 
Palestinians had permits for a period of three years. The permit 
could be renewed up to three times, each time for one year, but any 
Palestinian could have been stripped of his or her permit within six 
months of the end of their allotted stay outside the country without 
prior notice.

Senior military officials denied having any knowledge of such actions 
at the time of the publication of this report.

The report noted that a similar procedure has been applied to 
residents of East Jerusalem. Any Palestinian who has lived abroad for 
seven or more years loses their right to return to the city.

Israeli authorities have taken advantage of what it calls a policy of 
open bridges in order to implement this plan and carry out the 
expulsion of tens of thousands of residents of Jerusalem who have 
left the city for more than seven years.

The number of Palestinians who have been expelled through this quiet 
bureaucratic procedure numbers in the hundreds of thousands of Palestinians.




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