New Israeli govt dealt blow in controversial citizenship vote

Israeli Interior Minister Ayelet Shaked gives a statement at the Knesset (Parliament) in Jerusalem on July 5, 2021. (AFP)
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Updated 07 July 2021
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New Israeli govt dealt blow in controversial citizenship vote

  • Officials will find new ways to stop residency, citizenship through marriage for Palestinians: Experts

AMMAN: Israel’s Knesset early on Tuesday failed to renew a temporary law that bars Arab citizens from extending citizenship or residency rights to spouses from the occupied West Bank and Gaza.

The 59-59 vote in parliament marked a major setback for Israeli Prime Minister Naftali Bennett.

The Citizenship and Entry into Israel Law was enacted as a temporary measure in 2003, at the height of the Second Intifada.

Bennett had hoped to find a compromise between hard line and moderate factions within his coalition. But he suffered a stinging defeat in a vote he reportedly described as “a referendum on the new government.”

The law is now set to expire at midnight on Tuesday.

However, experts warm that Israeli security officials will find new ways of keeping Palestinians from obtaining residency or citizenship through marriage.

Jafar Farah, head of the Mossawa Center in Haifa, told Arab News that the defeat of the law came as a result of “advocacy, protests by families and hard work by many.”

Farah said: “We and the affected families organized dozens of meetings with parliamentarians, the media and other groups to explain the difficulties that married families have to go through to be together.”

He called on parliamentarians to “continue the struggle” until an appropriate family reunification law is enacted.

“The Israeli policy allows any Jew in the world to get permanent citizenship once they arrive at the airport, while at the same time, it perpetuates the division of Palestinian families using security and demographics excuses,” Farah said.

Um Yasmin, a Palestinian mother from Jerusalem who married a Palestinian from Bethlehem, told Arab News that she hopes that the absence of the law will help her family lead a normal life.

“We have been forced to have two homes in order not to lose our right to live in Jerusalem,” she said.

Wadie Abu Nassar, director of the Haifa-based International Center for Consultations, told Arab News that the failure of the coalition in the Knesset indicates a growing leadership crisis in Israel.

“Naftali Bennett and Mansour Abbas (leader of the United Arab List) showed that they are unable to control their own parties and mind the gaps among the components of the coalition, which they created just a few weeks ago,” he said.

But Abu Nassar added that he was unsure whether the absence of this law will affect separated families.

“While 1,600 Palestinian families, who were supposed to get some quick easing in the process of unification — as part of the deal between Israel’s interior minister and Mansour Abbas — will not get immediate relief, Israel’s secret service would have to work a lot to examine case by case instead of hiding behind the law for declining requests for family unifications,” he said.

Jessica Montell, director of HaMoked, an Israeli human rights organization based in Jerusalem, told Arab News that the majority of those affected by the law are Palestinian residents of Jerusalem.

“About 70 percent of the persons affected by this law are residents of East Jerusalem and not Israeli citizens. In fact, the law disproportionately harms the weakest population: Women from poor families with few tools to navigate this hostile bureaucracy,” she said.

Shawan Jabarin, director of Al-Haq Human rights organization, told Arab News that the law has always had racist underpinnings.

He said: “Israel’s racist policies are being exposed bit by bit. This was a political law that was hiding behind security cover. Palestinian families have suffered for 18 years. Isn’t that enough?”

The Knesset enacted the law in July 2003. It forbids Israelis married to, or who will marry in the future, residents of the occupied territories from living in Israel with their spouses.

Israelis married to foreign nationals who are not residents of the occupied territories are still allowed to submit requests for family unification on their behalf.

The controversial law received strong international condemnation at the time of its introduction.

The Geneva-based Committee on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination unanimously approved in August 2003 a resolution saying the Israeli law violated an international human rights treaty.

 


Syrian state media: Israel attacked town near Lebanon border

Updated 3 sec ago
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Syrian state media: Israel attacked town near Lebanon border

DAMASCUS: An Israeli strike hit a Syrian town near the border with Lebanon on Tuesday, Syrian state media said, less than a week after deadly strikes on the same area.
“An Israeli aggression targeted the industrial zone in Al-Qusayr” in Homs province, the official SANA news agency said. There was no immediate news of casualties or damage.

Health ministry in Hamas-run Gaza says war death toll at 43,391

Updated 13 min 48 sec ago
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Health ministry in Hamas-run Gaza says war death toll at 43,391

  • The toll includes 17 deaths in the previous 24 hours

GAZA STRIP: The health ministry in Hamas-run Gaza said on Tuesday that at least 43,391 people have been killed in the year-old war between Israel and Palestinian militants.
The toll includes 17 deaths in the previous 24 hours, according to the ministry, which said 102,347 people have been wounded in the Gaza Strip since the war began when Hamas militants attacked Israel on October 7, 2023.


Greece says migrant arrivals rising in south-east islands

Updated 38 min 40 sec ago
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Greece says migrant arrivals rising in south-east islands

  • At the end of October, several hundred migrants set up tents and cardboard houses outside the local government offices of the city of Rhodes, sparking anger among residents
  • Rhodes mayor Alexandros Koliadis told Rodiaki that the island lacks the personnel, police officers and coast guard needed to register the arrivals before transferring them to camps

ATHENS: Some islands in the southeast of the Aegean sea, including Rhodes, are seeing an increase in migrants arriving by boat from Turkiye, Greek migration and asylum minister Nikos Panagiotopoulos said Tuesday.
“The southeast of the Aegean and the island of Rhodes are experiencing migratory pressure right now,” he said on public television station ERT, though he said the increase does not appear to be linked to rising tensions in the Middle East.
At the end of October, several hundred migrants set up tents and cardboard houses outside the local government offices of the city of Rhodes, sparking anger among residents and local authorities.
According to local media Rodiaki, more than 700 migrants arrived during the last week of October.
Rhodes mayor Alexandros Koliadis told Rodiaki that the island lacks the personnel, police officers and coast guard needed to register the arrivals before transferring them to camps on the mainland or in other islands.
Previously, Aegean islands further north such as Lesbos and Samos had received the brunt of migrants crossing from Turkish shores.
Crete, which has likewise seen an increase in arrivals from Libya, also needs to build facilities to process migrants.
Greece has seen a 25 percent increase this year in the number of people fleeing war and poverty, with a 30 percent increase alone to Rhodes and the south-east Aegean, according to the Migration Ministry.
The UN High Commissioner for Refugees says 48,158 arrivals have been recorded so far in 2024, of which around 42,000 arrived by boat and 6,000 by crossing the land frontier with Turkiye.
“The camps on the islands have an occupancy rate of 100 percent. But on the mainland they are only 55 percent full, which provides a margin in the event of an increase in arrivals on the islands,” Panagiotopoulos said.


Sudan files AU complaint against Chad over arms: minister

Updated 51 min 17 sec ago
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Sudan files AU complaint against Chad over arms: minister

  • Chad last month denied accusations that it was “amplifying the war in Sudan” by arming the RSF

PORT SUDAN: Sudan’s army-backed government on Tuesday accused neighboring Chad of supplying arms to rebel militias, likely referring to the paramilitary forces it is battling.
The northeast African country has been engulfed by war since April 2023, when fighting broke out between the regular army, led by de facto ruler Abdel Fattah Al-Burhan, and the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces (RSF) commanded by his former deputy Mohamed Hamdan Dagalo.
Justice minister Muawiya Osman said Burhan’s administration had lodged the complaint against Chad at the African Union.
Speaking to reporters, including AFP, Osman said the government demanded compensation and accused Chad of “supplying arms to rebel militias” and causing “harm to Sudanese citizens.”
“We will present evidence to the relevant authorities,” he added from Port Sudan, where Burhan relocated after fighting spread to the capital, Khartoum.
Chad last month denied accusations that it was “amplifying the war in Sudan” by arming the RSF.
“We do not support any of the factions that are fighting on Sudanese territory — we are in favor of peace,” foreign minister and government spokesman Abderaman Koulamallah said at the time.
The United Nations has been using the Adre border crossing between the two countries to deliver humanitarian aid.
Sudan had initially agreed to keep the crossing open for three months, a period set to expire on November 15. Authorities in Khartoum have yet to decide whether to extend the arrangement.
The Sudanese war has killed tens of thousands of people and displaced more than 11 million, including 3.1 million who are now sheltering beyond the country’s borders.


Explosion at Turkish oil refinery injures 12

Updated 05 November 2024
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Explosion at Turkish oil refinery injures 12

  • The 12 employees sustained slight injuries and were taken to a hospital for examinations

ANKARA: An explosion at an oil refinery in northwestern Turkiye on Tuesday left at least 12 employees slightly injured, the company said. A fire at the facility was quickly brought under control.
The Turkish Petroleum Refineries company, TUPRAS, said a fire broke out at its facilities in Izmit, in Kocaeli province, during maintenance work on a compressor. The company’s emergency teams responded immediately to the incident, it said in a statement.
The 12 employees sustained slight injuries and were taken to a hospital for examinations, the company said.
The company said the unit where the incident occurred “was deactivated in a controlled manner” and that other operations at the refinery were “continuing as normal.”
Earlier, Tahir Buyukakin, the mayor for Kocaeli told private NTV television that the blast occurred during a drill. The fire was quickly brought under control by the company’s own crews and no request for help was made, he said.
Video footage from the site showed smoke rising from the refinery, which is one of Turkiye’s largest. Izmit is about 100 kilometers (62 miles) east of Istanbul.
The Borsa Istanbul stock exchange temporarily halted trading of TUPRAS shares, until the company provides a detailed explanation of the incident.