Palestinian militants to lose Israeli citizenship

Israel will have powers to revoke the citizenship or residency rights of Palestinians convicted of terror offences under new laws designed to deter militant violence.

The bill, which targets both Arab-Israelis and Palestinian citizens who live in Jerusalem, was backed by both the coalition and opposition parties in Israel’s parliament, but was condemned as racist by Palestinians living in the occupied West Bank, The Times reports.

Under the legislation, which was passed in the Knesset by 94 votes to 10, Israel’s interior minister will have powers to revoke the citizenship of those who have been convicted of terror charges and sentenced to prison time, or if they or their family have received stipends from the Palestinian Authority as a result of their crimes.

They would then be deported, after serving their sentence, to an area of the occupied West Bank under that is semi-autonomous control of the Palestinian Authority.

The legislation will apply to Palestinian-Israelis, who in theory have full citizenship rights, and those who have residency rights, including those who receive Israeli social benefits and hold identification cards that allow them to travel throughout the country.

Ofir Katz, the coalition whip of the Likud ruling party, said: “We are . . . giving notice that anyone who commits an act of terror, anyone who murders, anyone who assisted a terrorist in carrying out an attack and receives money from the Palestinian Authority, we will deport them.”

Various versions of the law have been proposed in the past but were criticised by Israeli legal experts. This time there was renewed impetus following the killing of ten Israelis in two attacks in Jerusalem, one by a Palestinian gunman and another who rammed his car into a bus stop.

“Our response to terror is to strike at it with great strength,” Benyamin Netanyahu, the prime minister, said after the law passed.

More than 40 Palestinians, mainly militants, have been killed in clashes with Israeli security forces since the start of the year, in the sharpest increase in violence since 49 Palestinians were killed in Gaza during a three-day confrontation between Israel and the Palestinian Islamic Jihad group last August.

Members of the Arab parties in the Knesset were alone in voting against the new law. Most of the centre-left opposition parties voted in favour, while the Labour members were absent.

Rawhi Fattouh, the speaker of the Palestinian Central Council, said: “The law shows the policy of hatred, extremism and dictatorship of the criminal government whose racist aims are to wipe out the Palestinian presence, especially in Jerusalem.”

A spokesman for Hamas, the Islamic militant group, claimed that the law “is in breach of the Palestinian nation’s rights in its historic homeland”.

The passing of the bill was a rare moment of cross-party agreement in a parliament which has been deeply split lately over the Netanyahu government’s plans to radically change Israel’s judicial system.

Aida Touma-Suleiman, a member of the Hadash Party, said that the proposed law was “discriminatory, anti-democratic and nothing else. International law prohibits taking a person’s citizenship away and leaving them without any status”.

The new law comes following a decision by the Israeli government on Sunday to advance planning for the construction of more than 9,000 homes on the Jewish settlements in the West Bank and to legalise nine settler outposts.

The decision was condemned by Britain and the United States and is expected to be the subject of a resolution at the UN security council on Monday.

President Biden’s press secretary, Karine Jean-Pierre, said: “The United States strongly opposes these unilateral measures, which exacerbate tensions, harm trust between the parties and undermine the geographic viability of the two-state solution.”