IOA renews travel ban against Jerusalemite expert

IOA renews travel ban against Jerusalemite expert

 The Israeli occupation authority (IOA) has renewed the travel ban on Khalil Al-Tafakji, the settlement affairs expert and director of the maps section at Orient House in occupied Jerusalem, for six months.

Tafakji, in a statement on Tuesday, described the decision as "oppressive" and is not based on any evidence, adding that he intends to file a lawsuit against the Israeli interior minister Eli Yishai’s decision.

He said that he entrusted Adala, the Legal Center for Arab Minority Rights in Israel, to file the case on his behalf.

The Jerusalemite expert charged the IOA with returning to the early stage of the occupation of eastern Jerusalem in 1967 when the security and intelligence apparatuses were controlling Jerusalem and barring travel of citizens unless with military orders.

The decision, the second in 2010, reflects the amount of confusion in the midst of the Zionist political scene that is under the hegemony of the far right, and constitutes a clear message to the Palestinian Authority that Jerusalem is out of any negotiations, Tafakji elaborated.

He said that he was summoned to the Maskobeh detention center where he was handed the ban based on the interior minister’s belief that his travel would pose a security threat to Israel.

Human rights sources revealed that Israel was planning to impose a similar travel ban on 18 Jerusalemite figures in a bid to quell opposition to its Judaization of the holy city.