Israel Kills Five, Court Rules Against Palestinian Residency

JENIN, West Bank, May 14, 2006 (IslamOnline.net & News Agencies) – Israeli occupation forces gunned down on Sunday, May 14, five Palestinians in the Jenin area of the occupied West Bank, while the supreme court upheld a controversial law barring Palestinians from living with spouses and children in Israel.

One of the victims was Ali Jabarin, a 21-year-old intelligence officer, while four of his colleagues were wounded at their Jenin headquarters, reported Agence France-Presse (AFP).

Two brothers, at least one of whom was said to be a member of Islamic Jihad, were also shot dead in Qabatiya, south of Jenin.

Thair Hanaisha was shot by Israeli soldiers as they entered the town to detain members of the resistance group, witnesses said.

His brother, Mejahid, was shot and killed as he tried to help his dying brother.

Medics also said that 21-year-old Jihad Asaf Iqmel had been shot dead by troops after he threw stones at the forces in Qabatiya.

Palestinian security sources also said Israeli special forces had tried to assassinate Mahmoud Saadi, the overall leader of Jihad in the Jenin area, by shooting at his vehicle in the village of Birqin.

Saadi was hit in the chest and legs but his injuries were not thought to be life-threatening, the sources said.

The deaths bring the overall toll since the September 2000 start of the Palestinian Intifada against the Israeli occupation to 5,052, mostly Palestinians, according to an AFP count.

No Residency

In another development, the Israeli High Court of Justice on Sunday narrowly upheld a controversial law preventing Palestinians married to Israeli Arabs from obtaining residency in Israel.

The court turned down a petition filed by several human rights groups contesting as "discriminatory" and "racist" the law passed by the Knesset in 2002.

An expanded panel of 11 justices split 6-5 in rejecting the petition, with court president Aharon Barak supporting it.

The majority opinion stated in the ruling that the Palestinians were "residents of an enemy entity" which potentially threatens Israel's security.

Barak said the verdict to uphold the legislation infringes on the civil rights of some Israeli citizens.

Before the enactment of the law, a Palestinian living in the West Bank or the Gaza Strip who was married to an Israeli citizen could apply for Israeli residency and eventually receive citizenship.

Black Day

Barak said the verdict infringes on the civil rights of Israeli Arabs.

"This is a very black day for the state of Israel and also a black day for my family and for the other families who are suffering like us," said Muad el-Sana, an Israeli Arab attorney married to a Palestinian woman from the West Bank town of Bethlehem.

"The government is preventing people from conducting a normal family life just because of their nationality," he told Israel Radio minutes after the ruling.

The court had granted el-Sana's wife, Abir, a temporary injunction preventing her deportation.

But el-Sana said the ruling made it almost impossible for the couple and their two children, aged 2 years and five months, to continue living together.

The new verdict also drew immediate rebuke from Israeli human rights groups.

The Association for Civil Rights in Israel (ACRI) said that the court ruling was a "sad day for democracy in Israel".

"The decision not to revoke the law ... is not only blatantly racist, but also undermines the basic tenets of a democratic state by violating the basic right of the state's civilian population to equality in general, and the right to family life to Palestinian citizens of Israel in particular," its chief legal advisor Dan Yakir said.

Amnesty International has called on Israel to repeal the controversial law.

Demographics

Many charged that the decision was based on demographic considerations.

"This is nothing but a pretext to limit the size of the Arab population in Israel with the use of a racist law which will have tragic consequences on thousands of families," said Orna Cohen, who represented several of the families.

Azmi Bishara, an Arab member of the Israeli parliament, agreed.

He said the ruling was "discriminatory and motivated by demographics."

Welcomed the court ruling, Israeli Immigration Absorption Minister Zeev Boim gave credibility to their argument.

"We have to maintain the state's democratic nature, but also its Jewish nature. The extent of entry of in-laws into Israel's territories is intolerable," he was quoted as saying by the Y-net website.

A recent poll showed that about 68 percent of Israeli Jews said they wouldn't live in the same building as Israeli Arabs.

The survey, conducted by Geocartographia and analyzed in the "Index of Racism Towards Arab Palestinian Citizens of the State of Israel", showed that 46 percent of Jews would not allow an Arab into their homes.

The survey found racist attitudes increased among the more religious and among poorer Israeli Jews.

Israeli Arabs (Palestinians living inside what is now Israel) make up a fifth of Israel's six million population.