Ministry of prisoners deplores escalating deportation of Palestinian detainees

Ministry of prisoners deplores escalating deportation of Palestinian detainees

The ministry of prisoners” affairs strongly denounced Friday the Israeli courts for escalating its deportation decisions against Palestinian prisoners in Israeli jails at the pretext that they hold foreign or Arab passports.


In a press statement received by the PIC, the ministry cited as an example that Israeli courts issued lately a decision to deport two Palestinian brothers from Jenin called Omar and Talib Awda to Jordan after they served their imprisonment term despite the fact that they possess Palestinian IDs.


The Israeli courts also decided to deport a Palestinian prisoner from Bethlehem called Marwan Faraj to Jordan, but he refused to sign the expulsion decision and the prison administration exercises huge psychological pressure against him to force him to sign the court decision, the ministry added.


Another prisoner named Ibrahim Hamdiya, 35, was separated from his wife and six children, who live in Jenin, and was deported to the Gaza Strip at the pretext that he had resided in the West Bank illegally.


The ministry underlined that this arbitrary policy used by the Israeli occupation is not new and aimed to collectively punish the Palestinians, noting that according to international law this action is considered a war crime, where article 49 of the fourth Geneva convention criminalizes any individual or mass forcible transfers.


The ministry appealed to human rights organizations to urgently intervene to put an end to this Israeli policy of deportation which is backed by a legal cover provided by the Israeli high court in order to pass violations against Palestinian civilians, warning that the international community”s silence encourages Israel to deport more Palestinians.