Revocation of Residency Status The policy of residency revocation is part of Israel’s wider strategy of silent transfer, which seeks to avoid international attention by forcibly displacing small numbers of people every month. Between 1967 and 1994, Israel revoked the residency of a quarter of a million Palestinian residents of the occupied Palestinian territory.14 After the occupation of the West Bank and Gaza Strip in 1967, Israel annexed 70.5 square kilometers of the occupied West Bank (including East Jerusalem) in violation of international law.15 Israel placed Palestinian Jerusalemites under Israeli domestic law and legal jurisdiction16 – specifically the Law and Administration Ordinance (Amendment No. 11) applied Israeli law, jurisdiction and administrative powers to the newly expanded municipal borders of Jerusalem – while the rest of the inhabitants of the occupied Palestinian territory were subjected to military rule. This situation continues until this day.17 Moreover, Israel seized exclusive control over the movement of people to and from the occupied Palestinian territory, as well as the power to grant residency status there. Neither the Oslo peace process which was launched in 1993, nor the 2005 unilateral military withdrawal of Israel from the Gaza 14 HaMoked, “Ceased Residency: Between 1967 and 1994 Israel Revoked the Residency of Some Quarter Million Palestinians from the West Bank and the Gaza Strip” (HaMoked, June 12, 2012), http://www. hamoked.org/Document.aspx?dID=Updates1175. 15 The United Nations Security Council declared the annexation decree illegal and in flagrant violation of international law in 1968. See: UN Security Council resolution 252, 1968. 16 In response, the United Nations Security Council unanimously adopted Resolution 242, which emphasizes the “inadmissibility of the acquisition of territory by war and the need to work for a just and lasting peace, […including] withdrawal of Israel armed forces from territories occupied in the recent conflict;” United Nations Security Council, Resolution 242, 22 November 1967. The United Nations Security Council issued resolution No. 478 condemning Israel’s annexation of East Jerusalem. Furthermore, the United Kingdom Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs said to the General Assembly: “war should not lead to territorial aggrandizement … I call upon the State of Israel not to take any steps in relation to Jerusalem which would conflict with this principle. I say very solemnly to the Government of Israel that, if they purport to annex the Old City or legislate for its annexation, they will be taking a step which will isolate them not only from world opinion but will also lose them the support that they have;” United Nations, General Assembly, Official Records, Fifth Emergency Special Session, 17 June – 8 September 1967, 1529th Plenary Meeting, A/A/PV, p.2 via the Civic Coalition for Defending the Palestinians’ Rights in Jerusalem, Israel’s Violations of the Palestinians’ Rights to Residency in Jerusalem, 2008, 14. 17 Israel passed the Law and Administration Ordinance (Amendment No. 11) Law in 1967 and ‘constitutionalized’ the annexation of Jerusalem in 1980 with the Basic Law: Jerusalem, Capital of Israel. 17