Order extended denying IDs to Arabs married to Israelis

Cabinet extends by 6 months order to stop granting Gaza, West Bank residents legal status in Israel through family reunification.

By HERB KEINON
E. Jerusalem security barrier at Kalandiya 311 (photo credit: Marc Sellem Israel/The Jerusalem Post)
E. Jerusalem security barrier at Kalandiya 311
(photo credit: Marc Sellem Israel/The Jerusalem Post)
The cabinet on Sunday extended by six months a temporary order instituted at the height of the second intifada in 2003 to stop granting Gaza and West Bank residents’ legal status in Israel through family reunification.
The order was adopted after a number of West Bank and Gaza Palestinians carrying Israeli identity cards acquired under family unification regulations were involved in 23 terrorist acts, taking advantage of their Israeli identity cards to go through IDF checkpoints and transport suicide bombers or explosives into Israel.
The decision followed the suicide bombing at the Matza restaurant in Haifa during Pessah in March 2002 in which 15 people were killed and more than 40 were wounded by a Hamas suicide bomber from the Jenin refugee camp who received an Israeli ID card through family unification.
By law this order needs to be renewed from “time to time, for a period that shall not exceed one year on each occasion.”
In addition, the cabinet will submit to the Knesset for its approval the following: “The cabinet also decided, on the basis of the opinion of the authorized security bodies, that the Gaza Strip is still an area from which activity is being perpetrated that is liable to endanger the security of the State of Israel and its citizens; therefore, the government instructs the interior minister to continue denying permits to reside or stay in Israel to those registered as residents of the Gaza Strip, as well as to those who reside in the Strip even though they may not be registered as such.”