Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Thursday asked a court to revoke the Israeli citizenship of two Palestinian men convicted of terrorism offenses.
The effort appears to be the first use of a law enacted three years ago allowing the revocation of citizenship and subsequent deportation of Palestinian citizens who were convicted of certain violent crimes such as terrorism and received financial support from the Palestinian Authority as a reward.
Netanyahu filed court documents arguing that the severity of the crimes, along with payments the men reportedly received from a Palestinian Authority fund, justify pulling their citizenship and expelling them from the Jewish State.
The prime minister has long claimed the fund rewards violence, including attacks on civilians.
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But Palestinian officials have contended that it is a safety net for the broad cross‑section of society with family members in Israeli detention. They also accused Netanyahu of focusing on the relatively small number of beneficiaries who carried out the attacks.
When the law passed, critics argued that it allowed Israel's legal system to treat Jewish and Palestinian people differently. Civil rights groups said that basing a deportation law on Palestinian Authority payments effectively excluded Jewish Israelis, including settlers convicted of attacks against Palestinians, from the threat of losing their citizenship, as the statute targeted people of a certain race.
Netanyahu said this week that the government launched proceedings against the two men and that similar cases would be brought in the future.
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Israeli officials said Mohamad Ahmad, a citizen from Jerusalem, was convicted of "offenses that constitute an act of terrorism and receiving funds in connection with terrorism." He allegedly received payment after he was sentenced in 2002 for a shooting attack and served 23 years before his release in 2024.
Mohammed Ahmad Hussein al-Halsi was sentenced in 2016 to 18 years behind bars for stabbing elderly women. He also allegedly received payments while in prison.
Ahmad would be deported immediately, while al-Halsi would be removed upon his release, as individuals are subject to removal to Gaza once their sentences are complete under the 2023 law, which applies to citizens or permanent residents convicted of "committing an act that constitutes a breach of loyalty to the State of Israel," including terrorism.
The general director of Israel's Adalah legal center, Hassan Jabareen, called the move to use the law "a cynical propaganda move" by Netanyahu. He said stripping citizenship violated the most basic principles of the rule of law, including by acting against people who have completed prison sentences.
"The Israeli government is attempting to strip individuals of the very foundation through which all rights are protected, their nationality," he said on Thursday, according to The Associated Press.
The Associated Press contributed to this report.
