Background
Credit:
Issam Rimawi, APA Images (via Middle East Monitor)
Deported for Not “Showing Loyalty”: The Case of Four Jerusalem Officials Whose Residency Was Revoked after a 12-Year Legal Battle
Snapshot
Four Palestinian Jerusalemites who were part of a duly elected Palestinian government that Israel refused to deal with spent 12 years fighting the state, which wanted to revoke their residency and deport them. In the end, the state found a way: by passing a new law allowing the state to cancel a residency status for “breach of loyalty,” and then applying it retroactively to all four. This is their story.
On January 25, 2006, Palestinians held an election for the Palestinian Legislative Council (PLC). In this election, half of the candidates ran on the proportional list (getting elected to represent the party as a whole) and the other half on a district list (getting elected to represent their home district; for example, the Jerusalem Governorate). In a major unexpected upset, the party that won the majority of the seats (74/132), the Change and Reform Party, was affiliated with the political wing of Hamas, the Islamic Resistance Movement (Harakat al-Muqawama al-Islamiyya).1
At the time, Israel allowed the election to proceed and did not ban the inclusion of this party, although it did impose significant obstruction in the run-up to the election, as described below. Immediately upon its election, however, Israel declared that it would not negotiate with a government that included Hamas.2 The government was sworn in on March 29.
Targeting of Jerusalemite Government Members Begins
In late May 2006, four Palestinian government officials—three elected parliamentarians and one appointed minister—who were permanent residents of Jerusalem were informed in a letter from Israeli Interior Minister Roni Bar-On that he would use his discretionary powers under Article 11(a) of the Entry into Israel Law of 1952 to revoke their permanent residency if they did not resign from the PLC within 30 days.3
The targeted officials included two of the four elected Jerusalem representatives with the Change and Reform Party—Ahmad Attoun of Sur Bahir and Mohammad Totah of Wadi al-Joz; the Number 2 on the National List for Change and Reform who was also a Jerusalem resident, Mohammad Abu Teir of Umm Tuba; and the first-ever Palestinian Minister of Jerusalem Affairs, Khaled Abu Arafeh of Ras al-Amud, who was appointed (not elected) to the post.4 The men were sometimes referred to in the Israeli media as “the Jerusalem 4.”5
In the letter, Bar-On stated:
Pursuant to [the Law of Entry into Israel], you are deemed to be a resident in the State of Israel. You are obliged to pay allegiance to the State of Israel. Nonetheless, your actions prove otherwise and indicate that your allegiance is paid to the Palestinian Authority.6
At the time, the Israeli media also reported that Bar-On said, “People who have roles in the [Palestinian] Legislative Council and the Hamas government have no place in the State of Israel.”7
Israel charged that as residents of Israel (i.e., Jerusalem), the four were not allowed to commit allegiance to the Palestinian Authority (PA), which in Israel’s view they had done by virtue of running for elections (despite the fact that Israel had allowed elections to proceed in the first place).8 The Ministry of Interior declared that Abu Teir’s presence in Jerusalem was “illegal.”
All four lawmakers came from families that had lived in Jerusalem for generations.9 All were married and fathers to between four and seven children.10 All four refused to resign from their positions and immediately appealed the decision.
Events in Gaza Accelerate the Pressure on the Four Jerusalemite Officials, Resulting in Their Arrests
On June 25, 2006, Israeli soldier Gilad Shalit was captured by Hamas fighters near the Gaza/Israel border and held in Gaza, which was not yet even under Hamas rule (that came later in June 2007), until October 2011.11 The Israeli government subsequently announced that elected PLC members and ministers would have no parliamentary immunity,12 despite the fact that such status is guaranteed under international law.13
At 2 a.m. on June 29, 2006, in raids across East Jerusalem and the rest of the West Bank, Israel arrested 64 Hamas officials, including PA cabinet ministers, PLC members, and mayors.14 Of these, 26 were PLC members, equating to nearly one-third of those elected to the PLC on the Change and Reform list in 2006 (74).15 Among them were all four Jerusalem officials—Abu Teir, Totah, Attoun, and Abu Arafeh.16 Wael Husseini (another elected representative to the PLC for Jerusalem) was also among those arrested.17
On June 30, the Israeli interior minister revoked the residency permits of all four men.18 Before the revocations could take effect, they were prosecuted before a military court19 and sentenced to two to four years in prison, as part of the general roundup of Hamas legislators in the wake of Shalit’s capture. They were never formally charged with any crime apart from belonging to the Change and Reform list.20
The Inter-Parliamentary Union (IPU), the global organization of national parliaments that monitored the arrests, shared the following detailed report from the Deputy Speaker of the PLC at their 116th session in April/May 2007:21
- The charges brought against the parliaments concerned are membership, leadership and action on behalf of a terrorist organization and the underlying argument is as follows: you are a PLC member, elected on the Change and Reform list supported by Hamas, which is a terrorist organization, hence you are a member of a terrorist organization and, as a member of parliament, assuming a leadership role; the parliamentarians concerned are tried by military courts mainly in the West Bank, sometimes also inside prison; they do not recognize the competence of the court to try them; the trial hearings, which are not public, are constantly postponed; lawyers have limited access to court files since prosecution material is often declared secret and, in this case, they are not given a copy of the charges; the court proceedings are usually as follows: the accused PLC member is brought into the courtroom and put in a cage; when the judge enters they are asked to stand up, which they refuse to do, and are then ordered out of court, which puts an end to the hearing; some of them have reportedly been asked to bear witness against their colleagues to testify that the latter had been elected on the Change and Reform list; if they refuse they are sentenced to two months’ imprisonment for contempt of court; according to the Israeli so-called Tamir law, if there are two witness statements against a person, that person can be charged as accused by the witness and no further statement from him or her is needed. . . .
- The parliamentarians concerned are held in several prisons inside Israel, usually located far from their homes; the procedures upon arrest and the conditions of detention, including in the case of the parliamentarians concerned, are as follows: upon arrest, detainees are strip-searched, including an inner-body search; during interrogation, they are usually handcuffed and tied to the chair; when being moved to the interrogation room, they have to wear darkened ski glasses;
- Upon arrest and during the interrogation period, detainees, including the PLC members concerned, are kept in solitary confinement in small cells with no access to newspapers or TV; once the interrogation period is over, they are often held together with one or two other prisoners in small cells which are usually equipped with one water tap but with little water running, TV and sometimes a toilet; there is no fresh air and only ventilation, no sun and always dim light, and cells are insulated in such a way that no outside noise can be heard; prisoners are deprived of their watches, so that the body clock no longer works; as regards visiting rights, only first kin relatives (including wives) are allowed to visit them, but permission is not always granted; more generally, prison visits are difficult because the PLC members concerned are held in prisons in Israel and a special permit to enter Israel is required, which is difficult to obtain; they have access to a limited choice of newspapers and TV channels; the parliamentarians concerned reportedly do not receive the medical care they require; Palestinian or other Arab doctors face many obstacles to being able to examine them; the delivery of letters, books and medicaments is prohibited by the Israeli authorities or unjustifiably delayed.
The IPU took up the matter at several of its assemblies and governing council sessions held in 2007 and beyond, unanimously adopting a number of resolutions on the matter (for an example, see Box: Sample Resolution).
One year after the election, in February 2007, Israel banned the Change and Reform Party, and then in May, outlawed it, despite the fact that the party was not synonymous with Hamas.22
In all, Attoun, Totah, and Abu Teir each spent about four years in prison; Abu Arafeh, three.23
Sample Resolution
At the 180th Inter-Parliamentary Union Governing Council session in May 2007, the following resolution was passed.
The Governing Council of the Inter-Parliamentary Union,
- Deeply regrets that the Israeli authorities have provided no information on the situation of the parliamentarians concerned;
- Recalls that the persons concerned were elected to the Palestinian Legislative Council in January 2006 on the Change and Reform party ticket, and that the international community, including Israel, considered the elections to have been free, fair and secure;
- Considers the charges brought against them to be untenable, which seems to be borne out by the absence of any proper trial; and continues to believe that they were arrested and are still held not on any lawful grounds of specific criminal activity but rather on account of their political affiliation and hence for political reasons in defiance of fundamental human rights to freedom, security and to a fair trial;
- Firmly recalls that, under international human rights law and international humanitarian law, no arrest shall be arbitrary and no one shall be held responsible for criminal acts committed by others; refers in this respect to Article 33 of the Fourth Geneva Convention (on the protection of civilian persons in time of war), which specifically provides that “no protected person may be punished for an offence he or she has not personally committed”;
- Remains deeply concerned that the arrests not only prevent the parliamentarians concerned—a third of the elected Change and Reform parliamentarians—from carrying out the mandate for which they were elected but also greatly prejudices the right of the Palestinian people to be represented by persons of their choice;
- Once more urges therefore the Israeli authorities to release the parliamentarians concerned forthwith or to bring without any further delay well-founded charges of specific criminal activity against them and try them in a fair and transparent legal process, guaranteeing full defence rights, as required under international human rights law and international humanitarian law;
- Is appalled at the treatment reportedly inflicted on the parliamentarians concerned upon arrest and at their conditions of detention, and fears that some of the measures taken are merely designed to humiliate them; urges the Israeli authorities to respect the United Nations Standard Minimum Rules for the Treatment of Prisoners and to provide the persons concerned with the medical care they require.
This matter continued to concern them at the 117th IPU Assembly in October 2007 and at the 118th in April 2008.
Notes
- IPU Governing Council, Resolution adopted at its 180th session, cases no. PAL/16–PAL/49.
- Emphasis added.
- IPU Governing Council, Resolution adopted at its 181st session, cases no. PAL/16–PAL/49, 84.
- IPU, “Summary Records of the Governing Council (182nd session)–14 and 18 April 2008, CL/182/SR.1,” Committee on the Human Rights of Parliamentarians, Palestine/Israel, June 18, 2008, 32–33.
At the 180th Inter-Parliamentary Union Governing Council session in May 2007, the following resolution was passed.
Mohammed Abu Teir walks out of an Israeli police station in on May 22, 2006, after being questioned, along with Jerusalem Affairs Minister Khaled Abu Arafeh and Mohammed Abu Teir and Ahmed Attoun, on suspicion of organizing a demonstration on the Al-Aqsa mosque compound.
Credit:
Menahem Kahana/AFP (via Getty Images)
In August 2008, while their petition was still pending, they appealed to then interior minister Meir Sheetrit, to restore their residency on the grounds that they no longer held their government positions. But in January 2009, Sheetrit rejected their request.24 By that time, in 2009, nearly one-third of the PLC was in Israeli detention.25
The Four Face Immediate Expulsion after Their Release from Prison
Upon the release of each of the four men in 2008 (Abu Arafeh) and 2010 (Abu Teir, Totah, and Attoun),26 the Israeli police confiscated their identification cards. All four received expulsion orders requiring them to leave Jerusalem by a certain date or face possible imprisonment, fines, and forcible transfer. In the case of Totah, for example, he received this order the day after his release and it gave him only 10 days to leave the country.27 They filed appeals with the Israeli Supreme Court. In an unprecedented move, the court declined to delay the residency revocations while the cases were pending and said the revocations could proceed, although it would not rule until a later date.28
Abu Teir, by then aged 54, was released on May 20, 2010, and served with an order to vacate the city by June 19.29 He refused to leave the city, saying he represented Jerusalem and the Palestinians, not Hamas. “I will not willingly leave the place my family has lived [in] for 500 years,” he said.30 He was charged with staying in Jerusalem illegally, and state prosecutors requested that he be sentenced to life in prison for this offense.31
On June 15, Adalah: The Legal Center for Arab Minority Rights in Israel filed for an emergency motion for an injunction to the Supreme Court to stop the deportation process against the four while their appeal was pending, but the injunction was denied five days later.32 At the time, Attorney Hassan Jabareen, the general director of Adalah, said:
The decision is dangerous for all Palestinians in Jerusalem since Israel can easily revoke their residency and deport them based on their legitimate political affiliations or activities. International law prohibits the occupying power from demanding loyalty from the occupied people.33
He also pointed to the extraordinary decision by the state to allow deportation to proceed before a hearing:
It is a central tenet of law not to deport before a hearing. In the case of the mass expulsion of Hamas members in 1992 they stopped the buses to allow the Supreme Court justices to hear the petitions. This is the first time a court refuses to issue an injunction before hearing a petition against expulsion.34
Subsequently on June 30, Abu Teir was rearrested while sitting in a car in Sur Bahir.
After Abu Teir’s Rearrest, Three of the Four Take Refuge at the Red Cross
The next day, July 1, the other three officials (who had all received orders to leave the city by July 3 within hours of their release on June 1)35 took refuge at the Jerusalem International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) headquarters in Sheikh Jarrah. They were allowed to sit in a protest tent during the day, where they received a steady stream of local and international supporters, and to sleep in one room of the ICRC at night. Abu Teir, meanwhile, was imprisoned for five months and then expelled to Ramallah on December 8, stripped of his residency rights and permanent-resident ID, and informed by the Israel Security Agency (also called Shabak or Shin Bet) that he was banned from Jerusalem.36 He appealed the revocation to the Israeli Supreme Court.
In an interview at the time, Totah stated:
We believe if the door of deportation is open in Jerusalem, it means that hundreds or even thousands will be deported . . . . our protest is not about our case in particular, but it is about all the Palestinians living in Jerusalem. We believe that this decision is designed to begin a process that will empty Jerusalem of Palestinian people . . . . There is a list of over 300 people who will be deported after us—the heart of Palestinian civil society in East Jerusalem—and for this reason all the parties in Jerusalem are united against this decision. They feel that we are the first and they will be the second. We know that the occupation doesn’t discriminate between political parties.37
He continued, “We have nowhere else to go. This is our original country and our original city. My father was born here; my grandfather was born here so we have been here hundreds of years. All we are demanding is to stay in our homes.”38
On June 30, 2010, Jabareen, the director of Adalah, reportedly warned of a “very dangerous precedent.” He added, “It is the first time Palestinians in East Jerusalem have had their residency revoked for being ‘disloyal’ and this could be used to expel many other residents whose politics Israel does not like. This is a draconian measure characteristic of dark and totalitarian regimes.”39
On July 21, 2010, former US president Jimmy Carter stated:
Revoking residency rights of these PLC members is another example of Israeli policy designed to change unilaterally the character of Palestinian East Jerusalem . . . Home demolitions, settlement construction, the separation of East Jerusalem from the rest of the West Bank and its annexation to Israel, and long-standing efforts to push Palestinian residents out of the city are violations of international law, which may make the creation of a viable Palestinian state impossible. I call upon the Quartet for Middle East Peace to demand that Israel respect international law in East Jerusalem, including reinstating residency for these PLC members.40
The Carter Center expressed deep concern about the revocation of Jerusalem residency rights for the four Jerusalemites and noted that, “Expelling these officials from Jerusalem is a violation of the Fourth Geneva Convention. Expulsion based on political affiliation would set a particularly dangerous precedent.”41
Attoun Is Lured Outside, Rearrested, and Forcibly Deported
The three other lawmakers remained living at the ICRC headquarters in hiding from July 1, 2010, until September 26, 2011, when Attoun was arrested on the premises of the ICRC—premises that are supposed to enjoy immunity—by Israeli undercover police dressed as Arabs, who created a fracas outside on the sidewalk to lure him into the courtyard and a cover for his abduction inside the property’s gated yard.42
The ICRC issued a statement about the abduction:
In connection with the arrest of Ahmed Attoun, a member of the Palestinian Legislative Council, in Jerusalem today, the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) is calling upon the Israeli authorities to comply with their obligations under international humanitarian law.
Mr. Attoun, together with another member of the Palestinian Legislative Council, Mohammed Totah, and a former Minister for Jerusalem Affairs, Khaled Abu Arafeh, had been staging a sit-in on the premises of the ICRC since 1 July 2010 to protest against a decision taken by the Israeli authorities to deport them.
Article 49 of the Fourth Geneva Convention of 1949 prohibits Israel, regardless of its motive, from forcibly transferring Palestinians.
Under international humanitarian law, East Jerusalem is an occupied territory, and its Palestinian residents are protected persons within the meaning of Article 4 of the Fourth Geneva Convention.43
Attoun was held for four months in the Russian Compound (al-Moskobiyya) in Jerusalem.44 On December 6, 2011, after a military court ruling, Attoun, a father of five, was forcibly deported to Ramallah.45 During the deportation process, at the Qalandiya checkpoint that divides Ramallah from Jerusalem, he was told by an Israeli soldier: “Now you are in the West Bank, and you will never return to Jerusalem.”46
“This is one of the hardest moments of my life,” Attoun told journalists as he crossed the border. “We are the original residents of this country and the occupation is the one that should leave the country, not us.”47
From right to left: Palestinian ministers of parliament Ahmed Attoun, Mohammad Abu Teir, and Mohammad Totah, and Jerusalem Affairs Minister Khaled Abu Arafeh gather in the parliament building in Ramallah on May 30, 2006.
Credit:
Abbas Momani AFP/via Getty Images
Totah and Abu Arafeh Are Eventually Nabbed and Arrested from the Red Cross Grounds
Totah and Abu Arafeh remained at the ICRC for several more months, until they were forcibly apprehended by Israeli police who jumped over the wall of the compound and grabbed them on January 23, 2012.48 The offices of the Red Cross were searched and the two men’s phones and computers were seized.49 Their capture came at a time when reconciliation was being attempted between Hamas and Fatah, and Israel moved against several additional Palestinian lawmakers outside Jerusalem.50 A week earlier, on January 19, Israel had detained the Speaker of the PLC, Dr. Aziz Dweik (Change and Reform), near Ramallah. Two days after their apprehension, Dweik was sentenced by an Israeli military court to six months’ administrative detention without charges or specified cause.51 On January 20, Israeli forces arrested PLC member Khaled Thwaib (Change and Reform) at his home in his West Bank village, Za‘tara, near Bethlehem. On January 24, Israel arrested PLC member Abdul Jaber al-Foqaha at his home in Ramallah. The Jerusalem lawmakers were thus part of a larger sweep.52
At the time, former US president Carter, whose Carter Center had served as international monitors for the 1996 election and who had personally been on the ground for them, denounced the moves against these elected officials and others and commented:
These men are guilty of nothing more than winning a parliamentary seat in an open and honest election, which was monitored by The Carter Center in 2006 . . . The detention of Speaker Dweik and other Palestinian legislators appears to be an attempt to hamstring the PLC in order to prevent Palestinian reconciliation and a prospective election later this year. We urge that the parliamentarians and former minister be released. International law prohibits Israel, as the occupying power, from forcibly transferring Abu Rafah [sic] and Totah from Jerusalem.53
IPU President Abdelwahad Radi issued a statement criticizing the human rights violations and noting that at this point, “almost 20 percent of the [Palestinian] parliament is in detention.”54
Totah and Abu Arafeh were placed under administrative detention at al-Moskobiyya Compound in Jerusalem for nearly two years and only released on January 16, 2014, following a ruling by the Supreme Court that held that the time spent in prison was sufficient but which also conditioned their release on their expulsion from Jerusalem. They were subsequently forcibly transferred out of the city.55
Once in Ramallah, the four deported lawmakers were left no choice but to await the Supreme Court ruling on their cases, forcibly separated from their families who could not accompany them because that would endanger their own residency status56 (see Precarious Not Permanent: The Status Held by Palestinian Jerusalemites). And relocation to Ramallah, which is supposedly under the control of the PA, did not mean an end to Israeli pursuit. In fact, all four were rearrested at various points and held under administrative detention.
Supreme Court Rules That Original Deportation Orders Were Not Legal
On September 13, 2017, the Israeli Supreme Court ruled that the original deportation orders against the four were not legal, because there was no law in effect at the time that granted then interior minister Bar-On the authority to revoke residency status for “breach of loyalty.”57
The Entry into Israel Law governs the entry of non-Israeli citizens into the country. According to the court’s ruling, the lawmakers’ status could not be revoked under this law because it applies only to foreigners entering Israel and not those already present and residing in the country.58
Therefore, they reversed Bar-On’s decision. However, the court also delayed the cancellation of the residency revocation for six months, effectively giving the government six months to redress the situation. On February 28, 2018, at the request of the prosecution, the court even extended this timeline by another 45 days, with a new deadline of April 29.59
“Breach of Loyalty” Law Is Passed; Deportations Are Ordered
On March 7, 2018, the government amended the Entry into Israel Law, allowing the minister of interior to cancel a permanent-residency status for “breach of allegiance to the State of Israel.”60 In the law, “breach of allegiance to the State of Israel” is defined as one of the following:
(1) An act of terror as defined in the Counter-Terrorism Law, 5776–2016, aiding or soliciting such an act, or taking an active part in a terrorist organization or a designated terrorist organization as defined in said law;
(2) An act which constitutes treason under Sections 97–99 of the Penal Law, 5737-1977, or aggravated espionage under Section 113(b) of said law.61
Finally, using this newly amended law to retroactively complete a then illegal action initiated over a decade earlier, Interior Minister Aryeh Deri ordered their permanent deportation from Jerusalem62 on April 29, 2018, 12 years after they were first served with notice that their residency would be revoked.
Interviewed in May 2018 by Al Jazeera, Attoun said, “Exile is like death . . . I can’t explain my relationship to Jerusalem. It is part of my soul. . . . Jerusalem is now just a few meters away from me, but I can’t enter. There are no words to describe the pain we are feeling.”
His family could not move with him and instead had to remain living in Jerusalem in order to maintain their residency. Consequently, Attoun only sees his family on weekends when they travel to Ramallah. His eight-year-old daughter has never lived in the same home with her father. “I wish I could see her just once in her school uniform when she comes home,”63 Attoun said. “Despite the suffering, in my heart I know we are right. In the natural order, I must return to Jerusalem.”64
A street poster from 2010 supporting the four officials
Notes
1
National Democratic Institute (NDI), “Final Report on the Palestinian Legislative Council Elections – January 25, 2006,” 2006, 52.
2
“Olmert Won’t Negotiate with Hamas,” NBC News, January 24, 2006.
3
“62 Days and Counting—Jerusalemite MPs Still Seeking Sanctuary in International Red Cross Offices,” Middle East Monitor, January 26, 2014; Amnesty International, “Urgent Action: Palestinians at Risk of Losing Residency Status,” April 26, 2018; Jillian Kestler-D’Amours, “Interview: Hamas Lawmaker Defies Order to Leave Jerusalem,” Electronic Intifada, April 20, 2011.
4
Arab Organisation for Human Rights in the UK (AOHR-UK), “Jerusalem Politicians Exiled by Israeli Occupation—Demand Justice,” March 20, 2013, 39–45. The other two, Ibrahim Abu Salem and Wael Husseini, were likely not on the revocation list because they live in areas that fall in J2, not J1 (Abu Salem in Bir Nabala and Husseini in al-Ram), outside the Israeli municipal boundaries of the city (see What Is Jerusalem?). Abu Salem was also in prison when he was elected. However, he was later arrested as part of a huge wave of arrests of Hamas lawmakers from their homes in mid-June 2014, and again from his home in Bir Nabala on June 3, 2018.
5
Seth J. Frantzman, “Terra Incognita: Hamas’s ‘Jerusalem 4’ Down to 0,” Jerusalem Post, January 24, 2012.
6
Al-Haq, “Israel Revokes Residency Rights of Four Palestinian Government Officials,” Electronic Intifada, July 1, 2006.
7
Al-Haq, “Israel Revokes Residency Rights.”
8
Max Blumenthal, “‘They Want Us to Be Loyal to the Occupation’: Muhammad Totah Interviewed,” Electronic Intifada, July 15, 2010.
9
Blumenthal, “‘They Want Us to Be Loyal.’”
10
AOHR-UK, “Jerusalem Politicians Exiled,” 35–42.
11
Israel Ministry of Foreign Affairs, “Gilad Shalit: Released after 5 Years in Terrorist Captivity,” October 18, 2011.
12
According to the Knesset website, “Knesset Members have the right of parliamentary immunity, which is intended to enable them to perform their tasks without fear of legal actions. The essential immunity ensures that a Knesset Member will not bear criminal or civil responsibility for any act which he performed while fulfilling his duty or in order to fulfill his duty. In addition, a Knesset Member has immunities relating to searches, detention, criminal hearings and legal proceedings which are not connected with his work as a Member of Knesset, and only the Knesset itself has the right to lift his immunity in these spheres. In Israel, the parliamentary immunity is extremely broad, and on occasion there have been proposals to limit it.” “The Rights and Duties of Members of Knesset,” The Knesset.
13
Maha Salah, “Israel’s Arrest Campaign against Palestinian Parliamentarians,” Middle East Monitor, May 14, 2014.
14
Salah, “Israel’s Arrest Campaign”; AOHR-UK, “Jerusalem Politicians Exiled,” 25; Inter-Parliamentary Union (IPU) Governing Council, Resolution adopted at its 180th session, cases no. PAL/16–PAL/49 (May 4, 2007), note 13; Kestler-D’Amours, “Interview.”
15
IPU Governing Council, Resolution adopted at its 181st session, cases no. PAL/16–PAL/49, 84.
16
Once arrested, Abu Arafeh ceased to be a minister in the government, which in any case politically was disbanded in 2007 with the Hamas takeover in Gaza, but that did not alter Israel’s prosecution of his case: AOHR-UK, “Jerusalem Politicians Exiled”; Daoud Kuttab, “Israeli Court to Rule on Minister’s Deportation Case,” Al-Monitor, May 11, 2015.
17
IPU Governing Council, Resolution adopted at its 181st session; Frantzman, “Terra Incognita”; ADDAMEER—Prisoner Support and Human Rights Association, “Palestinian Legislative Council Members,” November 2018.
18
Al-Haq,”Israel Revokes Residency Rights.”
19
For more on what type of legal “process” they would have experienced in an Israeli military court, see Yesh Din, “Backyard Proceedings,” January 6, 2007.
20
IPU Governing Council, Resolution adopted at its 181st session.
21
IPU Governing Council, Resolution adopted at its 180th session.
22
Jaclynn Ashly, “Palestinians Risk Losing Jerusalem ID over Israel Loyalty Law,” Al Jazeera, May 26, 2018.
23
Ashly, “Palestinians Risk Losing Jerusalem ID.”
24
Ilan Lior and Jack Khoury, “Israel’s High Court Overturns Recall of Hamas Legislators’ J’lem Residency after 11 Years,” Haaretz, September 13, 2017.
25
ADDAMEER, “Detained Palestinian Legislative Council Members,” July 25, 2017.
26
AOHR-UK, “Jerusalem Politicians Exiled,” 35–42; Kestler-D’Amours, “Interview.”
27
Kestler-D’Amours, “Interview.”
28
Jonathan Cook, “Israel Set to Enforce Revocation of Jerusalemites’ Residency Rights,” Electronic Intifada, June 30, 2010.
29
ADDAMEER, “Quarterly Update on Palestinian Prisoners (15 April–15 July 2010),” July 20, 2010.
30
Cook, “Israel Set to Enforce Revocation.”
31
Jerusalem Post Staff, “Muhammad Abu Tir Charged with Illegally Staying in Israel,” Jerusalem Post, July 1, 2010.
33
Adalah, “Israeli Supreme Court Rejects Motion.”
34
Adalah, “Israeli Supreme Court Rejects Motion.”
35
ADDAMEER, “Quarterly Update.”
36
“Muhammad Abu Tir Charged with Illegally Staying in Israel,” Jerusalem Post, July 1, 2010; Reuters Staff, “Israel Expels Hamas Lawmaker to West Bank,” Reuters, December 8, 2010; Mohammed Assadi, “Israel Expels Jerusalem Lawmaker to West Bank,” Reuters, December 8, 2010.
37
Blumenthal, “‘They Want Us to Be Loyal.’”
38
Blumenthal, “‘They Want Us to Be Loyal.’”
39
Cook, “Israel Set to Enforce Revocation.”
40
Carter Center, “Carter Center Calls for End to East Jerusalem Deportations, Respect for International Law,” July 21, 2010.
41
Carter Center, “Carter Center Calls for End to East Jerusalem Deportations.”
42
“Red Cross Slammed for Silence over Arrest of Palestinian Lawmaker,” Electronic Intifada, October 15, 2011; Frantzman, “Terra Incognita.”
43
International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC), “Jerusalem: Member of Palestinian Legislative Council Arrested,” news release no. 11/200, September 26, 2011.
44
Ashly, “Palestinians Risk Losing Jerusalem ID.”
45
AOHR-UK, “Jerusalem Politicians Exiled,” 27; “Israeli Officials Expel Hamas Lawmaker from Jerusalem,” Los Angeles Times, December 6, 2011.
46
Ashly, “Palestinians Risk Losing Jerusalem ID.”
47
Reuters, “Israel Expels Hamas Lawmaker from Jerusalem to West Bank,” Haaretz, December 6, 2011. See also Maureen Clare Murphy, “Israel Forcibly Transfers Palestinian Lawmaker from Jerusalem,” Electronic Intifada, December 7, 2011.
48
Frantzman, “Terra Incognita.”
49
AOHR-UK, “Jerusalem Politicians Exiled,” 27.
50
Rasha Abou Jalal, “Why Does Hamas, Fatah Reconciliation Keep Failing?” Al-Monitor, March 8, 2016; Salah, “Israel’s Arrest Campaign.”
51
Adri Nieuwhof, “Israel Steps Up Its Persecution of Palestinian Lawmakers,” Electronic Intifada, January 26, 2012. Note that this followed a previous arrest at his home in August 2006 in the sweep that followed the abduction of Israeli soldier Gilad Shalit in Gaza. At that time, Dweik was sentenced to three years in prison, two years suspended and a $1,500 bail. He was released in June 2009, just two months before completing his three-year sentence, when he was aged 60 and experiencing health problems. “Hamas Speaker Released,” BBC News, June 23, 2009.
52
Nieuwhof, “Israel Steps Up.”
53
Carter Center, “Carter Center Calls for End to East Jerusalem Deportations.”
54
Nieuwhof, “Israel Steps Up.”
55
Amnesty International, “Urgent Action.”
56
Kuttab, “Israeli Court to Rule.”
57
HaMoked, Center for the Defence of the Individual, “Israeli Human Rights Organizations: New Israeli Law That Lets Interior Minister Revoke Palestinian Residency in Jerusalem for ‘Breach of Loyalty’ Is Illegal,” news release, March 8, 2018.
58
“Court Rules State Had No Authority to Revoke Hamas Lawmakers’ Residency,” Times of Israel, September 14, 2017.
59
Amnesty International, “Urgent Action.”
60
HaMoked, “Unofficial Translation of Entry into Israel Law (Amendment No. 30), 5778-2018,” Israeli Knesset.
61
HaMoked, “Unofficial Translation of Entry into Israel Law.”
62
Daoud Kuttab, “Israel Deports Palestinians from Jerusalem for Not Showing ‘Loyalty,’” Al-Monitor, May 3, 2018.
63
Ashly, “Palestinians Risk Losing Jerusalem ID.”
64
Ashly, “Palestinians Risk Losing Jerusalem ID.”