Israel refutes eviction
reports, assures PA that there will be no deportation of Palestinians
to Gaza.
Jordan condemned Israel on
Wednesday over an Israel Defense Forces order facilitating the
deportation of tens of thousands of Palestinian from the West Bank.
The order, though in
existence since 1969, was recently discussed in a Haaretz article.
According to the report, a
military order aimed at preventing infiltration was to come into
force, enabling the deportation of tens of thousands of Palestinians
from the West Bank, or their indictment on charges carrying prison
terms of up to seven years. Under the order, tens of thousands of
Palestinians will automatically become criminal offenders liable to
be severely punished.
Israel's Foreign Ministry announced Wednesday that Israel's ambassador to Jordan, Dani Nevo, was summoned to the offices of the Jordanian foreign ministry where he was harshly chastised over Israel's military order that could lead to the eviction of thousands from the West Bank.
A Jordanian official
filling in for Jordan's Foreign Minister has released a statement in
which the Amman government condemns the order. The official requested
that the statement be forwarded to the Israeli government in
Jerusalem.
According to Israel's
Foreign Ministry, Ambassador Nevo briefed Jordan's government on the
facts regarding the order, and he also clarified that the order will
not change the status quo in the West Bank, but rather improve the
situation by providing judicial defense to those Palestinians who are
evicted.
Meanwhile on Wednesday,
Israel sent a calming message to Palestinian Authority President
Mahmoud Abbas, assuring him that Israel does not intend to harm
residents of the Gaza Strip currently living in the West Bank, in
light of the recent Haaretz report.
"There is no truth in
the publications that Israel intends to deport Gazans residing in the
West Bank," Brigadier-General Eitan Dangot, the coordinator of
government activities in the Palestinian territories, told top Fatah
official Hussein a-Sheikh during a phone conversation.
A-Sheikh told Haaretz that
Dangot requested he pass the message on to Abbas, saying that "he
[Dangot] explained that the order has been in place since 1969 and
promised that not a single person will be deported to Gaza."
"Regarding the
security decisions, we agreed that we would cooperate as we have in
the past," said a-Sheikh about his conversation with Dangot,
adding that "there is no intention to treat residents of the
west Bank who are originally from Gaza as 'illegal'."
A-Sheik added that "Dangot
said that Israel would not enable tourists who enter Israel with a
visa to enter the Palestinian territories."
However a-Sheikh also
criticized the very existence of the military order which has existed
since 1969, saying that it violated agreements signed between Israeli
and the PA in 1994, and proves that Israel is still trying to enforce
its sovereignty on the territories.
"Israel is still
trying to enforce the occupation laws in the West Bank and does not
recognize the West Bank and the Gaza strip as a separate geographical
unit," a-Sheikh said, adding that "these are signs that
Israel wants to maintain the occupation laws as they are in the West
Bank."
-- Barak Ravid and Avi Issacharoff
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