Ramallah: Thousands of Palestinians residing in the West Bank in violation of the Israeli occupation’s laws have been giventheir records following a promise from Israel offering them permanent residency and identity cards, said a senior Palestinian official.
According to Ma’arouf Zahran, the Undersecretary of the Palestinian Civil Affairs General Authority, the Palestinian National Authority (PNA) has received a promise from Israel that those residing in the West Bank “illegally” will be provided legal residency status.
“Those who entered the West Bank on [Israeli issued] visit permits or visas and overstayed will be provided with permanent residency and identity cards in the West Bank,” he told Gulf News.
“This is a family unification procedure which covers about 2,000 people in the West Bank,” he said.
Zahran said according to the Security Protocol of the Oslo Accords, Israel is obliged to provide the PNA with 3,000 identity cards annually for those who live outside the Palestinian Territories. “The Israelis, however, did not abide by the articles of the Accords and suspended offering all identity cards since the year 2000,” he said.
Under Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, the Israeli government has not extended a single permanent residency permit to a Palestinian in the West Bank. “This is the first time we have got such a promise from a government under Netanyahu, even though we have been chasing this issue for the past three years,” he said.
Family unification and offering permanent residencies for Palestinians in the Palestinian Territories is a natural right which should have been offered a long time ago, he said.
“A total of 150,000 people outside the Palestinian Territories have already applied for permanent residencies but their files have not been addressed by the Israeli side,” he said. “The focus in this case is only on those who entered the West Bank and overstayed.”
Those who overstayed in the West Bank are required to immediately refer to the various Palestinian Civil Affairs offices in their cities and update their files to confirm that they still live in the West Band and that their files are complete to be passed to the Israeli side for issue of permanent residencies and identity cards.
“Those who overstayed will hopefully get their identity cards shortly, as the PNA is currently in the final procedures,” he said.
Zahran said that the PNA also had an Israeli promise for 5,000 identity cards for the residents of the Gaza Strip. “So far this promise has been frozen and never been tackled by the Israelis,” he said.
Palestinians who ‘overstay’ in the West Bank are labelled “illegal residents” by the Israeli occupation authorities. They live under difficult conditions as they are not allowed to exit the A zone area of the West Bank. If they are discovered by Israel, they are almost immediately deported.
