state of Israel”.117 It is unclear exactly how many Palestinians have had their
residency revoked for breach of allegiance since 2006, but there have been
at least 12.118 In June 2006 for example, three members of the Palestinian
legislative council had their residency revoked. In January 2016, four East
Jerusalem Palestinians also had their residency revoked for being suspected
of committing criminal offences.119
“These Palestinians are not in prison, which means Israel has no criminal
charges against them. It doesn't accuse them of any criminal act. So they are
free, but at the same time considered to be individuals who have no allegiance
to the state of Israel. They have now been forcibly transferred [their residency
permit for Jerusalem was punitively revoked] and are living in Ramallah
because of their breach of allegiance, according to Israel. And this is very
dangerous. They are individuals who have been accused and punished because
of what they think and their political affiliation. Now, how do we know the
future of this policy? I think the fact that they introduced a criterion like
‘allegiance to the state of Israel’ as a precondition for living in Jerusalem, in
our own city, is very dangerous because we don’t know how different it will
be in the future. Who knows how the Israeli authorities will be interpreting the
criterion of allegiance in the future? I think this is a very dangerous criterion
to have because we don't know what it means in the first place, we don't know
what it will mean in the future. It could mean anything; cultural allegiance,
political... No Palestinian pledges allegiance to Israel in East Jerusalem. All of
them consider Israel an occupying power that will have to leave Jerusalem one
day, and therefore, putting allegiance as a precondition for living in Jerusalem
puts them at risk of displacement.”
Munir Nuseibah, director of the Community Action Center, Jerusalem
Interview: 27 November 2016
There exists no reasonable basis to suggest that Israel’s forced displacement
of those individuals highlighted above was conducted under grounds
permitted by Article 49 of the Fourth Geneva Convention nor has Israel made
any argument to this effect.120 Such displacement is clearly not undertaken
for the ‘security of the population’, understood as a scenario whereby an
area is in danger as a result of military operations or is liable to be subject to
117 Community Action Center, Punitive Residency Revocation: The most recent tool of forcible transfer,
April 2016. Available at: http://www.palestine-studies.org/sites/default/files/jq-articles/JQ66_
Recent%20Documents.pdf
118 Ibid.
119 Ibid.
120 “The Occupying Power may undertake total or partial evacuation of a given area if the security
of the population or imperative military reasons so demand. Such evacuations may not involve
the displacement of protected persons outside the bounds of the occupied territory except when
for material reasons it is impossible to avoid such displacement. Persons thus evacuated shall be
transferred back to their homes as soon as hostilities in the area in question have ceased.” Geneva
Convention IV , Article 49
34