125,000 Jerusalem residents “could lose residence rights”

The Jerusalem Centre for Social and Economic Rights (JCSER) has claimed that over 125,000 Palestinian residents of Jerusalem could eventually have been stripped of the right to live in their city because of the separation wall and the Judaisation policies adopted by successive Israeli governments. JCSER warns that Jerusalem is being subjected to the most dangerous Judaisation process, which is demographic in nature and is designed to control, as much as possible, what remains of Palestinian citizens’ lands.

In a statement, JCSER said, “There are 75,000 Jerusalemites living in the suburbs of Al-Barid, Kafr Aqab and Semiramis who also are subject to expulsion and the silent ethnic cleansing carried out by Israeli occupation forces.” This transfer policy has affected around 30000 Jerusalemites since the early nineties.

The centre noted that the Israeli Interior Ministry hides such information and refuses to provide accurate details of the number of Palestinians who have been stripped of their right of residence over the past three years. Last Saturday’s Haaretz newspaper quoted officials from the municipality of Jerusalem who said a direct result of the separation wall being built around Jerusalem has been the deportation of about 50,000 Jerusalemites from the city.