Israel revokes Jerusalem residency for Hamas minister, MPs

Fri Jun 30, 9:47 AM ET

JERUSALEM (AFP) - Israel has revoked the Jerusalem residency rights of a Hamas cabinet minister and three MPs, paving the way for their expulsion from the occupied eastern sector of the Holy City.

"The four are members of a terror organization dedicated to the destruction of the state of Israel. This contradicts the citizens' commitment towards the state," a senior interior ministry official told AFP Friday.

On May 29, Israel gave the four officials from the governing Palestinian Islamist movement -- blacklisted as a terrorist organization in the West -- 30 days to resign or face expulsion from Arab east Jerusalem.

The four affected by the decision are Jerusalem affairs minister Khaled Abu Arafeh and MPs Mohammed Abu Teir, Ahmed Attun and Mohammed Totah.

Housing Minister Meir Sheetrit said the four were now illegal residents, allowing Israel to expel them to the Palestinian territories.

"Police now have the legal possibility to take them out of their houses into Palestinian territory.

"They cannot handle the stick from both ends -- either they quit Hamas and the Palestinian parliament, or leave Israel," he told AFP.

They were detained as part of a massive Israeli operation on Thursday which landed 64 Hamas politicians in jail as Israel pressed on with a military operation in Gaza aimed at freeing a kidnapped soldier in Gaza.

Sheetrit said the arrested politicians would be "brought to justice and sent to prison if nothing happens in the release efforts".

But he was adamant that Israel was not using the politicians as bargaining chips for the release of Shalit.

Israel bans all Palestinian political activity in east Jerusalem which was occupied and annexed following the June 1967 Arab-Israeli war, a move not recognized by the international community.

The Palestinians want to establish the capital of their promised future state in east Jerusalem, where about 200,000 Palestinians live, making up 30 percent of the city's overall population.

Israel reluctantly agreed to allow voting in east Jerusalem in January's parliamentary elections under international pressure but refused to allow campaigning by Hamas, a group committed to the Jewish state's destruction.

However it first threatened to revoke the MPs' status in April following a suicide bomb attack in Tel Aviv that, while carried out by the smaller Islamic Jihad movement, was not condemned by Hamas.

Israel, like the European Union and the United States, considers Hamas a terrorist organization. The group has carried out scores of suicide bombings against Israeli targets but none for more than a year.

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