News / Palestine

Israel strips 4 Palestinians of residency rights

Thursday, 21 January 2016 10:10 PM [ Last Update: Thursday, 21 January 2016 10:43 PM ]

An Israeli soldier prepares to fire towards Palestinian demonstrators during clashes in the city of Bethlehem in the occupied West Bank on October 5, 2015. ©AFP

Israeli Interior Minister Aryeh Deri has stripped four Palestinians of their residency permits, accusing them of killing Israelis.

Tel Aviv has named three of the Palestinians as Walid Atrash, Mohammad Abu Kaf, and Abed Dawiat, alleging that they stoned a car in East al-Quds (Jerusalem) last September, causing its driver to lose control of the vehicle and have a fatal accident.

The regime has identified the fourth Palestinian as Bilal Ghanem, whom it claims attacked the occupants of a bus in the city the next month, killing two Israelis and fatally injuring another.

Palestinians, meanwhile, run the risk of having their properties razed to the ground over similar allegations.

Israeli Interior Minister Aryeh Deri ©AFP

Tensions have been running high across the occupied Palestinian territories in the recent months over Tel Aviv’s imposition of restrictions on Palestinian worshipers’ entry into the al-Aqsa Mosque compound in East al-Quds in August last year.

The tensions have also been escalated by the repeated desecration of the compound by extremist Israeli settlers, who are usually accompanied by Israeli military forces.

More than 160 Palestinians, including children and women, have been killed by Israeli forces since the beginning of last October. The United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs has voiced concern over “extrajudicial killing” of Palestinians by Israeli forces.

By encroaching upon the Palestinians’ right to live on their land and using direct violence against them, the Israeli regime has been systematically weakening Palestinian presence and ties across the territories under its occupation.

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