Israel stripped 4,577 Palestinians of right to live in Jerusalem in 2008, blocking residency status, at a faster rate than at any time in the history of the Jewish state, an Israeli rights group said on Wednesday, citing official Israeli statistics.
"Revocation of residence has reached frightening proportions," said Dalia Kerstein, executive director of Israel's HaMoked Center for the Defense of the Individual.
Statistics HaMoked obtained from the Ministry of Interior under a Freedom of Information Act request show 4,577 residents of East Jerusalem had their residence revoked in 2008, which was greater than half the total revoked in the past 40 years.
The United Nations, United States and European Union have criticized Israel's policies in Jerusalem, which include the eviction of Palestinians from homes, demolition of Arab housing, and expansion of settlements on land occupied since a 1967 war.
The state-figures were made public in the Israeli newspaper Haaretz on Wednesday. The total was 21 times higher than the average of the previous 40 years.
"The Interior Ministry campaign in 2008 is only part of a general policy whose aim is to limit the Palestinian population and preserve a Jewish majority in Jerusalem, whose future is supposed to be determined in negotiations," Kerstein said.
"The Palestinians are natives of this city, not residents who have recently arrived," she added in a HaMoked statement.
Israel occupied East Jerusalem after capturing the area in the 1967 Middle East war and regards all of the city as its capital, a claim not recognized internationally. Palestinians in the annexed territory refused Israeli citizenship. Like the international community, they do not recognize the legitimacy of Israeli control over the area.
Some 250,000 Palestinians now live in East Jerusalem and adjacent suburbs alongside 200,000 Israelis. The government of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu rejects calls for the city to be divided or shared as part of a peace agreement.
EU report cited
The United Nations and Western powers, which do not recognize Israel's claim, say the status of the city is a core issue to be settled in peace negotiations, which have been suspended for the past year and show no sign of resuming soon.
In the first 40 years of Israeli occupation Israel revoked residency rights of 8,558. More than double that number lost their ID cards in 2008 alone.
Haaretz quoted an internal European Union document as saying Israel was helping Jewish right-wing zealots to implement a "strategic vision" of changing the demographics.
The 250,000 Palestinians with Israeli-issued East Jerusalem identity cards have the same legal status as people who immigrated to Israel legally, but are not entitled to citizenship, Attorney Yotam Ben-Hillel of Hamoked: Center for the Defense of the Individual said.
While 35 percent of Jerusalem citizens are Arab, less than 10 percent of the city's budget goes to Arab areas, it said.
The consulate of Sweden, which holds the rotating presidency of the 27-member EU, confirmed the existence of the report but refused to release it to Reuters. A senior Palestinian official also refused to disclose the document.
Because of their status as non-citizen residents, Palestinians in Jerusalem can easily lose their ID cards. According to lawyers who spoke to Ma'an, simply leaving for five years, or obtaining residency or citizenship in another country can endanger a Jerusalem resident's rights.
PHOTO CAPTION
Israeli security officers check the ID of a Palestinian man heading for Friday prayers in the Al-Aqsa mosque compound in Jerusalem's Old City in October 2009.
Source: Agencies