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<h1 class="title" id="page-title">Israel orders wife of Palestinian
jailed for Facebook comments expelled from Jerusalem</h1>
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<span property="dc:date dc:created"
content="2015-05-25T19:08:30+00:00" datatype="xsd:dateTime"
rel="sioc:has_creator">Submitted by <span class="username"
xml:lang="" about="/users/patrick-strickland"
typeof="sioc:UserAccount" property="foaf:name" datatype="">Patrick
Strickland</span> on Mon, 05/25/2015<br>
<b><small><small><small><a class="moz-txt-link-freetext" href="http://electronicintifada.net/blogs/patrick-strickland/israel-orders-wife-palestinian-jailed-facebook-comments-expelled-jerusalem">http://electronicintifada.net/blogs/patrick-strickland/israel-orders-wife-palestinian-jailed-facebook-comments-expelled-jerusalem</a></small></small></small></b><br>
</span> </div>
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media-element file-full" height="416" width="618" style="">
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<p>Israeli occupation authorities delivered an order to Muna
Shalabi, the wife of a recently sentenced Palestinian prisoner,
informing her that they intend to expel her from her hometown of
<a href="http://electronicintifada.net/tags/east-jerusalem">Jerusalem</a>
for “security reasons.”</p>
<p>Shalabi, 43, is from the Sawaneh neighborhood of occupied East
Jerusalem, and was informed by Israel’s interior ministry that
she must leave the city for an unspecified amount of time, <a
href="http://www.arab48.com/?mod=articles&ID=1158529">according
to the publication <em>Arab48</em></a>.</p>
<p>Shalabi’s husband Omar, 44, was earlier this month sentenced to
nine months in an Israeli prison after an Israeli court found
him guilty of “supporting terrorism” and “incitement” for
comments he wrote on Facebook last December.</p>
<p>Omar, the former secretary of Jerusalem’s branch of the <a
href="http://electronicintifada.net/tags/fatah">Fatah</a>
political party, was one of eight Palestinians from the
city arrested in December for Facebook comments.</p>
<p>The court cited “statuses” and comments he wrote in support of
armed activities against Israelis following the kidnapping and
murder of 17-year-old <a
href="http://electronicintifada.net/tags/muhammad-abu-khudair">Muhammad
Abu Khudair</a> by Israeli settlers last July, <a
href="http://www.haaretz.com/news/israel/.premium-1.657173">according</a>
to the Israeli daily <em><a
href="http://electronicintifada.net/tags/haaretz">Haaretz</a></em>.</p>
<p>Sami Deis, a 27-year-old Palestinian Jerusalemite who was
arrested at the same time as Shalabi, was sentenced to eight
months in prison for similar charges relating to a Facebook page
– titled “Death to Israel” – that he created and administered.</p>
<h2><strong>“Worry and fear” </strong></h2>
<p>With Omar in prison, Muna is the sole parent taking care of
their six children, who are aged 7-22 years old, <em>Arab48</em>
adds.</p>
<p>Held in Gilboa prison in northern present-day Israel, Omar is
one of an estimated 5,820 Palestinian political prisoners in
Israeli lockup, <a href="http://www.addameer.org">according</a>
to the Ramallah-based prisoner support group <a
href="http://electronicintifada.net/tags/addameer">Addameer</a>. </p>
<p>The order does not specify the “security threat” that his wife
poses — she has not been accused of any crime — by remaining in
their family’s home. Although Israel’s interior ministry claims
that it gave her 21 days to appeal the order, Shalabi denies
that she was given any such opportunity.</p>
<p>Since receiving the order, Muna and her children have lived in
“a situation of worry and fear” and she “appeals to relevant
human rights and legal institutions and the international
community for quick intervention… to stop Israel’s ethnic
cleansing policies against Jerusalemites and [Palestinians’]
presence in Jerusalem,” <em>Arab48</em> reports.</p>
<p>Israel’s practice of banning Palestinians from Jerusalem is
nothing new.</p>
<p>In December 2014, five Palestinian activists from Jerusalem
were banned from the city. Among them was <a
href="http://electronicintifada.net/tags/daoud-al-ghoul">Daoud
al-Ghoul</a>, a 31-year-old activist and tour guide.</p>
<p>Six days after receiving the original banning order, al-Ghoul
received a military court decree in <a
href="http://electronicintifada.net/tags/ramallah">Ramallah</a>,
where he had relocated, banning him from the occupied <a
href="http://electronicintifada.net/tags/west-bank">West Bank</a>
in its entirety, as The Electronic Intifada <a
href="http://electronicintifada.net/content/tour-guide-political-activist-banned-his-native-jerusalem/14112">reported</a>
at the time. </p>
<p>Al-Ghoul has since lived in <a
href="http://electronicintifada.net/tags/haifa">Haifa</a>, a
coastal city in central present-day Israel, and is unable to
continue his work as a tour guide for the time being.</p>
<h2><strong>Residency revoked</strong></h2>
<p>More than 300,000 Palestinians live in neighborhoods throughout
East Jerusalem, where they regularly endure harassment and
violence by Israeli occupation forces and <a
href="http://electronicintifada.net/tags/settler-violence">settlers</a>
alike. Palestinians native to the city are treated by Israeli
occupation authorities as if they, not Israel which occupied the
city in 1967, are the newcomers.</p>
<p>Banning Palestinians from the city is just one of several
methods Israel employs to expedite the ethnic cleansing of
Jerusalem and push the indigenous population out. Israel also
regularly demolishes Palestinian homes in the city and <a
href="http://electronicintifada.net/tags/jerusalem-residency">revokes</a>
Palestinians’ <a
href="http://electronicintifada.net/tags/revocation-residency-rights">residency
status</a>.</p>
<p>Since Israel’s military occupation of the city in 1967, at
least 14,416 Palestinians have had their residency revoked, <a
href="http://www.hamoked.org/Document.aspx?dID=Updates1483">according</a>
to the Israeli rights group <a
href="http://electronicintifada.net/tags/hamoked">Hamoked</a>.
In 2014 alone, Israel revoked the residency of 107 Palestinians
from East Jerusalem, among them 56 women and 14 children.</p>
<p>These revocations have a much greater impact than on the
individual targeted, as they often split married couples from
each other and parents from children. Families are left with the
prosepct of leaving the city en masse in order to stay together.</p>
<p>Thousands of children living in East Jerusalem do not carry
residency papers and are thus denied access to healthcare,
education and other basic services, as The Electronic Intifada
has <a
href="http://electronicintifada.net/content/thousands-jerusalem-children-denied-basic-services-israeli-apartheid/13043">reported</a>
in the past.</p>
<p>In November 2014, Israel’s interior ministry <a
href="http://www.aljazeera.com/news/middleeast/2014/11/israel-strips-attacker-widow-residency-20141126185411270174.html">revoked
the residency</a> of Nadia Abu Jamal, the wife of a
Palestinian who was killed while attacking Israeli worshippers
in a Jerusalem synagogue. That attack resulted in the deaths of
five Israelis.</p>
<p>The decision came amid a <a
href="http://www.aljazeera.com/news/middleeast/2014/11/east-jerusalem-under-collective-punishment-2014111682924491709.html">harsh
crackdown by Israeli occupation authorities</a> on
Palestinians in East Jerusalem.</p>
<p>“The formal phrase ‘permanent residency’ is misleading,” the
Israeli human rights <a
href="http://electronicintifada.net/tags/btselem">group
B’Tselem</a> observed in a <a
href="http://www.btselem.org/press_releases/20141123_revocation_of_residency">press
release</a> following Abu Jamal’s residency status being
revoked.</p>
<p>“This status is far from permanent, as evinced by the recent
revocation and by thousands of previous cases of revocation,”
the group continued. “The only permanent thing about this status
is its temporary nature and instability.”</p>
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