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Official warns of Israel withdrawing Palestinians' residency in Jerusalem

Xinhua, October 26, 2015 Adjust font size:

A senior Palestinian official warned on Monday of unprecedented dangers due to Israel's plans to withdraw residency ID cards of thousands of Palestinians in east Jerusalem.

Adnan al-Husseini, minister of Jerusalem affairs in the Palestinian consensus government, told Xinhua that such a measure would be a "purely a political decision, which aims at emptying Jerusalem from its Palestinian residents and making them a minority in comparison with a Jewish majority."

He said it means that 200,000 Palestinians will be expelled from the city.

Some 360,000 Palestinians are living in east Jerusalem area, but Israel considers most of them living outside the city, he said.

Israeli Radio earlier reported that Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu had informed his cabinet of studying the possibility of withdrawing the Palestinians' residency.

Netanyahu was referring to the Palestinians who are living outside the wall that Israel has been building over the past 12 years in the West Bank.

"Since 1967, Israel withdrew the identity cards of 14,500 Palestinian families who lived in east Jerusalem. They were forced to leave the city for various security reasons, but the substance of such measures is fully political," al-Husseini said.

Tensions between Israelis and Palestinians, mainly in east Jerusalem, have been mounting over the past few weeks. Due to Israeli measures in Jerusalem and at al-Aqsa Mosque compound, violent clashes between Israeli security forces and angry Palestinians have been raging all over the Palestinian territories. Endit