In the period of this month, the Alternative Information Center (AIC) has observed that the Israeli Interior Ministry located in East Jerusalem is stepping up its policy of ID card confiscation and cancellation of resident status from Palestinian Jerusalemites living outside the city borders or abroad. The office of Atty Lea Tsemel was informed by Shlomo Matanya, director of the Interior Ministry, that this policy is based on instructions issued by the Ministry’s legal advisor to cancel the resident status of all those registered residents of East Jerusalem whose “center of life” is not in the city. Mr. Matanya, however, was not ready to provide further details in regards of these instructions and he rejected the lawyer’s request for an official announcement of this new policy prior to implementation. 

As a result of this new policy, Palestinian Jerusalemites coming from abroad are stopped by the Israeli border police at the Jordan bridges or at other border crossings to Israel and they are told that their ID cards are too old and that they would not be permitted to leave the country unless they renew their IDs. The Interior Ministry then usually agrees to receive the application for ID card renewal, however, two  weeks later, when the new ID card is supposed to be issued, people are told that they have lost their resident status in Jerusalem. Persons concerned are not offered a chance to document their presence in the city so as to counter the Ministry’s claim that they have established domicile elsewhere. 

The new instructions contradict earlier statements of Ministry officials which had all emphasized that there were no intentions to confiscate ID cards of Palestinian Jerusalemites, unless they stay abroad for more than seven consecutive years (Law of Entry to Israel, 1952). Moreover, Israeli law does not require permanent residents - which is the official status of most Palestinian residents of Jerusalem - to renew their ID cards within a certain period of time. 

The Alternative Information Center calls upon the local and international human rights organizations and upon Palestinian officials to protest the new wave of ID card confiscations from residents of East Jerusalem.  

According to the Israeli Interior Ministry, 1,765 applications for Israeli citizenship on the part of Palestinians in East Jerusalem have been approved since 1967, 500 of them in 1994 and 1995, 5,000 additional applications are still pending. [Jacob Dalal, Jerusalem Post, 29/3/1996]