Embassy of the State of Palestine

PLO Executive Committee Member Dr. Hanan Ashrawi condemned the passing of a second and third reading of a draft law that allows the Israeli government to withdraw residency rights from Palestinian Jerusalemites it considers to be involved in activities against Israel.

Approved by the Israeli Ministerial Committee for Legislation of the Knesset, “Such a law,” Dr. Ashrawi said, "represents an extremely racist piece of legislation and gives full mandate to the Netanyahu government and future Israeli governments to revoke the IDs of Palestinians from Jerusalem at will and without just cause. By unethically stripping the residency of Palestinians from Jerusalem and depriving the rights of those Palestinians to remain in their own city, the Israeli government is acting in defiance of international law and is violating international human rights and humanitarian laws. This latest move is in the context of Israel’s systematic ethnic cleansing plans for Jerusalem and seeks to dispossess the Palestinians who have been the rightful and long-term inhabitants of the occupied city."

Dr. Ashrawi adds, "Since 1967, Israel has revoked the residency status of more than 14,500 Palestinians from Jerusalem using the pretext of its illegal and draconian laws."  

She also denounced Israel’s total disdain for Article 49 of the Fourth Geneva Convention which states, “Individual or mass forcible transfers, as well as deportations of protected persons from occupied territory to the territory of the Occupying Power or to that of any other country, occupied or not, are prohibited, regardless of their motive.”

Dr. Ashrawi called on the international community to immediately “intervene and exert all efforts to prevent the implementation of this extremist bill that serves to create unjust demographic realities in Jerusalem by illegally importing Jewish settlers while expelling its rightful Palestinian inhabitants.”