JCSER: “Hundreds of Palestinians Losing Residency Rights In Jerusalem”

Tuesday July 27, 2010 07:16

by Saed Bannoura - IMEMC

The Jerusalem Center for Social and Economical Rights (JCSER) issued a report detailing the latest numbers of Palestinians who lost their residency rights in occupied East Jerusalem due to Israeli restrictions and measures.

Israeli Policemen in Jerusalem - JCSER Image

Two months ago, the center filed a request in this regard to the Israeli Interior Ministry and recently received a response regarding the number of Palestinian who lost residency rights since 2009 until June 6, 2010.

The Israeli Ministry revoked residency rights of 721 Palestinians, including 108 who lost this right since the beginning of this year until June 6. This means that a total of 829 Palestinians were stripped of their residency rights in 1.5 years.

The number of Palestinians who were stripped of their residency rights since Israel illegally captured and occupied East Jerusalem in 1967 until mid June 2010 has arrived to 86.226 (14371 families), while the year 2008 witnessed the largest number of Palestinians who were stripped of their residency rights.

Furthermore, Israel is ignoring and rejecting thousands of application of family unification and thousands of applications to register newborn Palestinians in the city.

The JCSER added that Israel only reinstated the residency rights of 95 Palestinians since the beginning of 2009 until July 6, 2010.

As for family reunification applications since 2009 until July 15 2010, a total of 1099 applications were filed and only 258 were approved in 2009 and only 22 in 2010. In the same period, Israel rejected 144 applications in 2009 and 12 this year so far,
while 631 applications are still under review.

Ziad Al Hammoury, head of the JCSER, said that the Israeli numbers are not accurate as the reality on the ground is much worse as it was portrayed by the Israeli list as hundreds of residents are being stripped of their residency rights in occupied East Jerusalem, hundreds of families are not granted family reunifications and not allowed to register their children as Jerusalem residents, while hundreds of Palestinians who study or work abroad were stripped of their ID cards at border terminals.

Al Hammoury added that Israel is still ongoing with this illegal policy and is escalating it, especially after its revoked residency rights of Jerusalem legislators and is trying to keep them out of the city.

But the issue, Al Hammoury said, is not only about the legislators as Israel revoked the residency rights of 4672 Palestinians in 2008 alone.