Israel Passes Law To Deport Palestinian Attackers' Families To Gaza

Legal experts said that any attempt to implement the legislation would likely be struck down by Israeli courts.

Israel passed a law on Thursday, that would allow it to deport family members of Palestinian attackers including the country’s citizens to the war-ravaged Gaza Strip or other locations. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s Likud party and his far-right allies championed this law, which was passed with a 61-41 vote.

However, legal experts said that any attempt to implement the legislation would likely be struck down by Israeli courts, according to an Associated Press (AP) report.

The law applies to Palestinian citizens of Israel and residents of annexed East Jerusalem who know about their family members’ attacks ahead of or expressed “support or identification with the act of terrorism.” Such people would be deported, either to the Gaza Strip or another location, for anywhere between seven and 20 years. 

The war between Israel and Hamas is still ongoing in Gaza, thousands have been killed and most of the population is displaced internally. 

As per BBC, Israeli human rights organisations call the law unconstitutional.

It is unclear if the law would apply to the occupied West Bank, where Israel already has a long-standing policy of demolishing family homes of attackers, which critics condemn as a collective punishment. As per AP, Palestinians have carried out scores of stabbing, shooting and car-ramming attacks against Israelis in recent years.

A legal adviser to the Association for Civil Rights in Israel, Oded Feller, dismissed it as “populist nonsense”. He said it was unlikely to be applied because there is no legal way for the Interior Ministry to send an Israeli citizen to another country or Gaza. According to AP, his organisation doesn’t plan to challenge the law unless authorities try to enforce it, in which case he expects any court challenge to succeed.

Opposition member of the Knesset, Israel's parliament, Mickey Levy asked “whether you will deport Ben Gvir’s family,” a reference to National Security Minister Itamar Ben Gvir’s conviction in his youth for incitement to violence and supporting a terror group, according to BBC.