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Timeline: Israel’s anti-Palestinian laws since 1948

May 15, 2017 at 10:00 am

2006-Present

06 Nov 2023: The Israeli Knesset approves, in the second and third readings, a draft bill stipulating one year imprisonment for anyone who publishes material praising, showing sympathy for or encouraging the Palestinian resistanc

25 July 2023: The Israeli Knesset approves the expansion of the discriminatory Admissions Committees Law and allows more Jewish-only communities to screen applicants and reject those they deem unsuitable; allowing them to filter out Arab-Palestinian applicants

16 July 2023: Israel advances a draft bill calling for students who carry the Palestinian flag on campus or show support for the struggle against the occupation to be expelled from their studies and never to have their degrees recognised

04 June 2023: Israel approves a private bill to expand its discriminatory Admission Committees which filter out Arab Palestinian applicants and others from marginalised groups from new housing developments.

21 July 2022: Israel’s Supreme Court rules that Palestinians can be stripped of their Israeli citizenship if they are found to be in ‘breach of loyalty’, even if the move renders them stateless

11 March 2022: Israel’s Knesset passes a law effectively barring Palestinians from the West Bank or Gaza who are married to Palestinian citizens of Israel from gaining citizenship or a residency in Israel. It also prohibits the entry of Arabs from countries ‘hostile’ to Israel, such as Lebanon, Syria, Iraq and Iran, for family reunification purposes

17 June 2021: Israel’s new coalition repeals a planned vote on extending the Citizenship and Entry into Israel Law for an additional year after after the opposition right-wing blocs refrained from backing the bill. The law bans Palestinians families in Israel from being reunited with family members in the occupied West Bank, Gaza Strip and countries which Israel deems ‘hostile’

11 October 2020: Israeli occupation authorities approve the construction of 500 housing units in the illegal Israeli settlement of Tzur Hadassah, which is built on lands belonging to Palestinians from Wadi Fukin village in Bethlehem

06 October 2020: Israeli Defence Minister Benny Gantz signs four seizure orders for funds being transferred to the families of Palestinian detainees and martyrs

02 September 2020: Israeli Defence Minister Benny Gantz signs four seizure orders for Hamas funds and property in Gaza

21 April 2020Israel’s military commander in the occupied West Bank approved a law would allows the occupation to seize funds held in bank accounts in the name of Palestinian prisoners

21 April 2020: Israel’s Attorney General Avichai Mandelblit   approves the appropriation of land belonging to the Waqf in the occupied city of Hebron

07 January 2019: Israel’s highest court dismisses a petition brought by Palestinian landowners, thus effectively greenlighting the state’s master plan for a major settlement in the occupied West Bank

07 January 2020: Israel’s Defence Minister Naftali Bennett has told security officials that he wants to treat Palestinians who cross through the Gaza Strip perimeter fence as ‘illegal combatants’ allowing them to be held ‘indefinitely’

06 January 2020: Israeli Defence Minister Naftali Bennett vows to demolish all Palestinian structures build without an impossible-to-obtain permit in ‘Area C’ of the occupied West Bank

05 January 2020: Israel approves the construction of 1,936 new settler homes on occupied Palestinian territories, watchdog Peace Now says. 89% of which will be erected in ‘settlements that Israel may have to evacuate under a future peace agreement with the Palestinians’

20 December 2019: The Israeli government is working to further clamp down on already restricted Palestinian construction in so-called ‘Area C’ of the occupied West Bank, with Defence Minister Naftali Bennett issuing instructions to occupation authorities to intensify Israel’s crackdown in an effort to attain a ‘total stop to illegal Palestinian construction within two years’

18 December 2019: Israeli authorities have approved or otherwise advanced plans for more than 22,000 housing units in occupied West Bank settlements over the last three years, according to a senior UN official

04 December 2019: An Israeli settler organisation is renting out part of a plot of expropriated Palestinian land to the Jerusalem Municipality who gave them the land in the first place, proving, saying rights groups, that the government seeks to keep settler groups happy

01 December 2019: Israel approves an extra 40 million shekels ($11.5 million) for settlements in the occupied West Bank; the majority is a one-time grant for ‘security needs’, while the remaining is ‘for the construction of first aid stations’

28 November 2019: Israeli authorities advance a number of settlement plans across occupied East Jerusalem,  includes a total of 395 housing units

28 November 2019: Israeli construction ministry announces it is preparing a plan for 11,000 housing units in Atarot settlement, in the north of occupied East Jerusalem. No actual plans have yet to be formally advanced

28 November 2019: Work has begun on the expansion of Nof Tzion colony in Jabal Mukkaber, occupied East Jerusalem, which when completed will become ‘the largest Jewish settlement within a Palestinian neighbourhood in the city’ in what rights groups say ‘is a symbol of the Israel government’s choice to prevent the possibility of an agreement in Jerusalem’ Attachments area

25 November 2019: Israel has ‘tightened its restrictions’ for Palestinian farmers trying to access their land located between the illegal Separation Wall and the Green Line, narrowing the purpose of these permits and changing them so “they will also only be good for a certain number of entries”

20 November 2019: Israeli occupation forces raid Palestinians media companies in Jerusalem and close them for six months in what locals believe is an effort to silence news sites from reporting on the occupation’s crimes

09 November 2019: More than 120 highly qualified Palestinian doctors emigrated from the Gaza Strip in 2018 and 2019 as a result of the Isralei siege

04 November 2019: Israel’s Housing Cabinet approves the construction plan for a cable car which will boost the settler presence in the Silwan neighbourhood of occupied East Jerusalem

15 October 2019: Israeli authorities open a natural spring in southern Jerusalem to visitors, ‘but on the explicit condition that Palestinians not be allowed to enter the site’

10 October 2019: The Israeli Supreme Court has facilitated the interrogation of a Palestinian under torture, according to human rights group B’Tselem, deciding to treat him ‘ as if he were not a human being’

25 September 2019: Israel is using ‘a policy of segregation’ designed to ‘forcibly transfer’ Palestinians out of occupied Hebron, rights group B’Tselem reports

24 September 2019: An Israeli town is set to build its cemetery inside the occupied West Bank, necessitating the presence of armed guards at every funeral to be held here

22 September 2019: The Israel Electric Corporation (ICE) will be cutting power to parts of the occupied West Bank, citing ‘outstanding payments amounting to nearly $483 million’

17 September 2019: Israeli army lawyers recommend that ‘individual Jews should be allowed to buy private land’ in the occupied West Bank, a call that requires a change in the laws that govern the area

20 August 2019: Israel’s Ministry of Education is to fund school trips to the occupied West Bank including to Joseph’s Tomb, an ancient burial site located near Nablus

05 August 2019: 12 of the 17 personnel working in the Israeli office dedicated to relations with Palestinian residents of occupied East Jerusalem are former agents of domestic security agency Shin Bet

05 August 2019: Israeli authorities are set to advance more than 2,400 settlement housing units this week, in parallel to granting retroactive approval to four unauthorised settlement outposts, NGO Peace Now warns

31 July 2019: Israel approves the construction of 6,000 new settlement units in Area C of the occupied West Bank

23 July 2019: At least 16 unauthorised Israeli settlement ‘outposts’ have been established since 2017, a new Peace Now report reveals, with authorities not only turning a blind eye to the expansion but even at times helping to retroactively ‘legalise’ the outposts

21 July 2019: Israel’s Supreme Court rules that illegal settlers can continue to occupy two Palestinian homes in the West Bank city of Hebron until legal disputes have been resolved

14 July 2019: Israel’s top court gives its approval to a punitive ban on family visits for Hamas prisoners from the Gaza Strip, a decision human rights activists say is ‘court-sanctioned vengeance’

15 July 2019: Israel uses facial recognition cameras as illegal checkpoints it operates in the occupied West Bank tracking Palestinian movement

08 July 2019: A right-wing Israeli settlement group confiscates money raised to help a Palestinian family facing eviction from their home in Jerusalem.

08 July 2019: Palestinian children from Jerusalem arrested by Israeli occupation forces are subjected to ‘a deliberate policy to de-educate’, reports prisoners’ rights group Addameer.

08 July 2019: The Israeli government is compelling high school students to pass an online propaganda course before being allowed to participate in overseas class trips, a course promoting ‘racist ideology’

01 July 2019: The Legal Centre for Arab Minority Rights in Israel – better known as Adalah –  submits an administrative petition to the Nazareth District Court demanding it rule as null and void the Afula municipality’s ban on the entry of non-residents to the park, a move believed to be in force to prevent Palestinian citizens of Israel from using the facility

28 June 2019: Israeli officials shelve a flagship development plan due to objections that it did not include the occupied West Bank

27 June 2019: Israeli authorities advance plans for a settlement of 150 new housing units in Beit Hanina, occupied East Jerusalem

18 June 2019: Israel’s Public Security Minister Gilad Erdan praises the role played by a controversial definition of anti-Semitism in the fight against BDS saying the new explanation incorporates both ‘classic and new anti-Semitism’

18 June 2019: Newly uncovered documents reveal that Israeli authorities began looking for ways to encourage Palestinian emigration immediately after occupying the West Bank in 1967

17 June 2019: Israel’s Public Security Minister Gilad Erdan proposes a new bill that would impose a maximum sentence of up to three years in prison for those who sponsor, finance, support or organise activities for the Palestinian Authority (PA) in occupied East Jerusalem

17 June 2019: Israel’s Supreme Court gives the green light for the state to demolish 13 apartment blocks built in ‘Area A’ of the occupied West Bank, but which now lie on the ‘Israeli’ side of the illegal Separation Wall.

15 June 2019: Dozens of residents of Israeli town Afula protests against the sale of one home to a family of Palestinian citizens. They are joined by the town’s Mayor Avi Elkabetz and his deputy Shlomo Malihi

14 June 2019: Illegal settlers setup a new outpost near occupied Hebron’s Gold Souk

14 June 2019: 550 Palestinians are set to become homeless after Israeli occupation forces issued demolition orders for all the homes in Jerusalem’s Wadi Yasul, located between the neighbourhoods of Abu Tur and Silwan

3 June 2019: Israel’s National Infrastructures Committee (NIC) approves the plan for a controversial cable car which will run from West Jerusalem to the roof of the planned Kedem Compound, a massive, settler-run visitor centre in the heart of Palestinian neighbourhood Silwan. ‘The cable car will channel thousands of people a day over an invisible Green Line to the epicentre of Elad’s touristic settlement operations and divert unwitting tourists from the traditional Old City entry points via Jaffa and Damascus Gates, depriving Palestinian businesses from one of their main sources of income.’

15 May 2019: According to settlement watchdog Peace Now, 19,336 new settlement housing units began construction in the period 2009-2018 while Benjamin Netanyahu has been prime minister of Israel

14 May 2019: Israel approves 941 housing units in two settlements in occupied East Jerusalem

02 May 2019: Israeli authorities are blocking Palestinian family unification applications at the Interior Ministry’s office in occupied East Jerusalem, because of the ‘intolerable workload’

30 April 2019: The Israeli government will subsidise hotels in illegal settlements in the occupied West Bank, as part of a plan to attract more tourists to the area

28 April 2019: Israeli human rights NGO B’Tselem reveals that occupation authorities have forced around 3,000 Palestinians from their homes in Jerusalem between 2004 and 2019

03 April 2019: Israeli authorities in occupied East Jerusalem are advancing plans for a new Jewish religious school in the Palestinian neighbourhood of Sheikh Jarrah

02 April 2019: Israeli announces a plan that would see tens of thousands of Bedouin Palestinian citizens displaced from their communities, under the guise of development

19 March 2019: Israeli occupation forces lay the cornerstone of the first of 839 settlement units which are to be built in the illegal settlement of Ariel on occupied Palestinian land in Salfit

19 March 2019: Israeli occupation forces announce that they will be closing all crossings and checkpoints between Israel and the West Bank and Gaza Strip for four days during the Jewish holiday of Purim, paralysing Palestinian movement

17 February 2019: The Israeli cabinet approves a bill to deduct $138 million from the Palestinian Authority (PA)’s tax revenue in a bid to stop prisoners’ stipends

04 February 2019: Israeli settlers in the southern occupied West Bank post ‘flyers warning Palestinian labourers not to cooperate with Israeli human rights activists or organisations if they want to keep their jobs’

28 January 2019: Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu says he will eject foreign forces based in occupied Hebron who help safeguard Palestinians, accusing them of anti-Israel activity,

28 January 2019: Israeli Agriculture and Negev Development Minister Ori Ariel completes a plan to displace about 36,000 Arabs from their ‘unrecognised’ villages in the Negev to build infrastructure and security projects

09 January 2019: Israel has opened a road connecting areas of illegal Jewish settlements in the West Bank with Jerusalem, making settler access from the occupied Palestinian territory to the holy city easier

Construction workers build illegal settlements in West Bank [File photo, Wisam Hashlamoun/Apaimages]

08 January 2019: Israel has ‘allocated about 1,200 dunams (300 acres) for planning of a new neighbourhood that would expand the settlement of Efrat toward Bethlehem’, in the occupied West Bank.

27 December 2018: Israel approves plans for the construction of 1,450 new settlement housing units in the occupied West Bank

18 December 2017: Israeli Minister of Agriculture Uri Ariel orders a stop in the import of fruits and vegetables from the occupied Palestinian territories, a move that could cost the Palestinian economy some one million shekels ($0.27 million) a day

16 December 2018: Israeli ministers vote to advance draft legislation that would see the relatives of alleged Palestinian assailants expelled from their homes and forcibly relocated to other parts of the occupied West Bank. Opposition to the law is expressed by Attorney General Avichai Mandelblit and the Shin Bet.

16 December 2018: The Israeli Ministerial Committee for Legislation approves a bill that would see the government legalise 66 illegal settlement outposts and 6,000 settlement units in the occupied West Bank

09 December 2018: Israel adds 200 communities to a list where Arab occupants can be banned from taking up residents in an effort to Judaise large parts of the Galilee

06 December 2018: The Counselling and Legislation Department of Israel’s Justice Ministry – with the backing of Attorney General Avichai Mandelblit and Minister of Justice Ayelet Shaked – issues a legal opinion which will allow an Israeli-only road to be built to the illegal outpost of Haresha, situated near Ein Qiniya north of Ramallah in the occupied West Bank

29 November 2018: The Israel Land Authority (ILA) plans to build 2,300 housing units for Jerusalem’s Haredi (ultra-Orthodox) population on the historic site of the Palestinian village of Deir Yassin, which witnessed a massacre in 1948.

26 November 2018: The Israeli Supreme Court is accused of providing backing to the torture of Palestinians by Israeli forces after it rules that the torture used on Fares Tbeish by Shin Bet agents in September 2012 was not illegal, classifying the methods used as permitted ‘enhanced interrogation’

24 November 2018: The United States Agency for International Development (USAID) announces that it will cease all operations in the occupied Palestinian territories (oPt) by early 2019, laying-off more than half its staff within weeks

22 November 2018: Israeli occupation authorities ban the Minister of Jerusalem Affairs, Adnan Al-Husayni, from travelling for three months and force him to sign a financial guarantee of 10,000 shekels ($2,676) after confiscating his passport

13 November 2018: The US Department of State announces that it is offering a reward of up to $5 million for  information leading to the identification or location of Hamas’ deputy leader Saleh Al-Arouri

05 November 2018: An Israeli court has ruled that the state is not liable for damages for killing a 15-year-old Palestinian in Gaza, setting a precedent which means Israel will be immune from further legal action

06 November 2018: Israel approves 640 settlement units in the illegal Jerusalem based settlement of  Ramat Shlomo

05 November 2018: A new Israeli bill allowing the culture minister to withhold public funding for cultural organisations ‘working against the principles of the state’ passed its first reading. The bill would ban the financing of organisations that commemorate the Nakba or other Palestinian massacres

04 November 2018: Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu approves a bill which would make it easier for Palestinians to be handed the death penalty

02 November 2018: Israeli coalition partner Jewish Home will advance a bill to the ministerial committee for legislation on Sunday that would allow authorities to forcible displace Palestinian families of ‘terrorists’ within the occupied West Bank

31 October 2018: Israel’s Defence Minister Avigdor Lieberman orders an apartment block be built on top of the central market in Hebron in the occupied West Bank

31 October 2018: The Israeli government will double the number of its workforce at the body which supervises the life of Palestinians and Jewish settlers in the occupied West Bank

25 October 2018: Israel approves the construction of 470 new settlement units in the illegal Israeli Jewish settlement of Ma’ale Adumim and is to approve 20,000 more units

25 October 2018: Israeli Defence Minister Avigdor Lieberman lays the cornerstone for the new site of Army Radio station in Jerusalem saying ‘we’re setting the first facts on the ground’

25 October 2018: Israel demolishes the Palestinian Bedouin village of Al-Araqeeb for the 135th time and arrests a number of its residents

23 October 2018: An Israel parliamentarian committee is discussing a bill which would force the Palestinian Authority (PA) to pay the expenses of treating Palestinian prisoners inside Israeli jails

23 October 2018: Israel Prison Service (IPS) bans female Palestinian prisoners from family visits and cut hot water supplies after they launched protests against the installation of CCTV cameras in their courtyards

21 October 2018: Israel’s National Security Council (NSC) considers banning a European NGO which regularly submits petitions and requests to Israeli courts to halt or delay eviction or demolition orders targeting Palestinian properties

21 October 2018: Israel cancels work permits for the relatives of Aisha Al-Rabi, the Palestinian mother who was stoned to death by illegal Israeli settlers last week

16 October 2018: The Israeli occupation army has bid to obtain spying systems that monitor the private messages of social media users

14 October 2018: Israeli MKs propose a bill which would ban Parole Boards from reducing the term of Palestinian prisoners being held in Israeli jails

14 October 2018: Israel approved a $6m budget to build a new illegal settlement in occupied Hebron in an effort to increase the settler presence in the city

10 October 2018: Israel’s Supreme Court rules that the construction of the new illegal settlement of Amichai is permitted to continue

9 October 2018: Israeli occupation authorities issue a confiscation order against 8,242 dunums (2,036 acres) of Az-Zawiya village’s lands in the Salfit district of the West Bank for alleged military purposes

07 October 2018: Israel ‘has only ever sought detention until the end of court proceedings for Arab suspects in online incitement to terror cases – but never for Jewish suspects’, a prosecutor reveals in court

04 October 2018: Israeli Mayor of Jerusalem, Nir Barkat, announces plans to remove UNRWA from occupied East Jerusalem to put ‘an end to the lie of the ‘Palestinian refugee problem”

23 September 2018: Israel tells residents of Khan Al-Ahmar to empty their houses by 1 October to make way for the Bedouin village’s demolition

18 September 2018: Saudi Arabia has told travel agents not to accept visa applications from Palestinian refugees in Lebanon who do not hold Palestinian Authority passports

17 September 2018: Israeli occupation authorities announce a plan to annex 260 dunams of Palestinian land to the south of the occupied West Bank city of Hebron to expand the illegal settlement of Tina Omarim

07 September 2018: Israel bans teenage Palestinian activist Ahed Tamimi and her family from travelling abroad to meet European human rights groups

05 September 2018: Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu orders the closure of Israel’s embassy in Paraguay hours after the Latin American nation’s new government announces it will move its embassy back to Tel Aviv from Jerusalem

05 September 2018: The Israeli High Court of Justice gave the green light for the demolition of Khan Al-Ahmar, making 180 Palestinian Bedouin families homeless

04 September 2018:  Israel’s Central Court agrees to the sale of four boats which were captured as they tried to break the siege of the Gaza Strip and for all funds to be donated to two settler families

03 September 2018: After the US halts aid payments to UNRWA, Jerusalem Mayor Nir Barkat calls the organisation ‘unnecessary’ and says he ‘plans to expel it’ from the occupied city

30 August 2018: Israel knocks a hole into the Old City walls of occupied Jerusalem to create a new ‘gate’ near the ancient Damascus Gate

Israel knocks a hole into the Old City walls of occupied Jerusalem to create a new 'gate' near the ancient Damascus Gate [Twitter]

Construction workers knock a hole into the Old City walls of occupied Jerusalem to create a new ‘gate’ near the ancient Damascus Gate [Twitter]

28 August 2018: An Israeli court makes a ‘precedent-setting ruling’ accepting the ownership claim made by settlers inhabiting an illegal outpost in the occupied West Bank paving the way for regulating dozens of other illegal hilltop communities

28 August 2018: Israeli settlers have ‘established an unauthorised outpost near the settlement of Eli’ in the northern occupied West Bank

28 August 2018: The Israeli Magistrate Court of Beersheva in the Negev confirms a ten-month jail term for Aziz Al-Turi the head of Al-Araqeeb village, which has been demolished by occupation forces 132 times

24 August 2018: Israeli authorities promoted 2,275 settlement housing units in occupied East Jerusalem over the past two months, Israeli NGO Ir Amim reports, ‘while touristic settlement plans advance[d] under the radar’.

22 August 2018: Israel approves 382 settler homes and advances 1,400 other units in the occupied West Bank amid settler calls to ‘ remove [building] restrictions’ on settlement expansion in the Palestinian territories

22 August 2018: A Likud Member of the Knesset has suggested Israel pass a law which would see anyone carrying the Palestinian flag in public jailed

21 August 2018: Israel announces plans to build 650 new settler units in the illegal Jewish-only Beit El settlement, located adjacent to the occupied West Bank city of Ramallah

20 August 2018: Israel approves 106 new housing units in an illegal settlement near the occupied West Bank city of Bethlehem

15 August 2018: Palestinian journalist Ali Dar Ali is detained and charged with incitement after he livestreamed two videos of Israeli soldiers operating in a Palestinian refugee camp near Ramallah

14 August 2018: Israel’s Jerusalem Municipality’s Planning and Construction Committee approves a plan to build military colleges on Palestinian land located in Ein Karem village, southwest of the holy city

13 August 2018: Israel suspended a German-backed construction project to build a landfill site for waste disposal in the central occupied West bank district of Ramallah calling on Berlin to expand it to allow settlers to use the site

12 August 2018: The Israeli government approves a significant $2.7 million expansion of the illegal Hebron area settlement Kiryat Arba’s industrial park

29 July 2018: Israeli authorities announce a temporary suspension of all family visits from Gaza to Palestinian prisoners held in Israeli prisons beginning 30 July 2018 due to technical issues

26 July 2018: One month after it was last demolished, the Palestinian village of Al-Araqeeb is razed by Israeli occupation forces for the 131st time

22 July 2018: Israel approves 20 new housing units in settlement near occupied Bethlehem

11 July 2018: An Israeli parliamentary committee approves legislation that would limit Palestinian access to the Supreme Court with regard to land cases, paving the way for the annexation of the occupied West Bank

09 July 2018: Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu says he is to stop commercial supplies entering the Gaza Strip through the Kerem Shalom border crossing

Palestinians stop with their lorries near the Israeli crossing Kerem Shalom [Abed Rahim Khatib/Apaimages]

04 July 2018: The Israeli parliament advances a new law that would allow residential construction in the settler-run ‘City of David’ national park in Silwan, occupied East Jerusalem

21 June 2018: Israeli Defence Minister Avigdor Lieberman issues an order ‘designating the Hamed Exchange Company in Gaza City a terrorist organisation’ in a move to intensify its siege of Gaza

01 July 2018: 128 violations against Palestinian journalists in June at the hands of both Israeli occupation forces and Palestinian Authority security officials, according to the Committee to Support Palestinian Journalists

29 June 2018: An employee of Israel’s Civil Administration – the Defence Ministry-run body which manages the day to day affairs of the military occupation – declared a plot of land in the occupied West Bank to be state land and ‘after leaving his job, set up an illegal outpost on it’

27 June 2018: Israeli occupation forces demolition the Arab Negev village of Al-Araqeeb for  the 130th time

22 June 2018: Israeli Public Security Minister Gilad Erdan advancing an amendment that would give Border Police forces operating in occupied East Jerusalem ‘immunity from lawsuits’ for damages they cause in the course of acting against ‘terror or rioting’

13 June 2018: Israel plans to limit helium supplies to the besieged Gaza Strip, a move which would restrict vital supplies to hospitals

10 June 2018:  Israel admits to the High Court of Justice that a decision to evict 700 Palestinians from their land after it was transferred to a settler institution was ‘flawed’

04 June 2018: A bill calling for Israel to be defined as a state of all its citizens is stopped before it reaches the Knesset for discussion

04 June 2018: Israel’s Nature And Parks Authority (INPA) resumes excavation work at the Palestinian Bab Al-Rahma cemetery, just outside the walls of the Old City in occupied East Jerusalem, laying out plans to build a national park for illegal settlers

31 May 2018: Israel’s Supreme Court reverses a previous ruling which allowed the appropriation of Palestinian land for settler use

30 May 2018: Israel approves 1,500 new settlement units in the occupied West Bank, 1,000 on the outskirts of Hebron

30 May 2018: Israel approves the construction of 261 settlement units in occupied Hebron

28 May 2018: Israeli politicians wave through a bill that would prevent many cases, including those of housing demolitions and Israeli land grabbing offences, from reaching the High Court, instead redirecting them to district courts in the occupied West Bank

25 May 2018: Israel’s Supreme Court has given permission for the demolition of the Palestinian village of Khan Al-Ahmar in the occupied West Bank despite pleas from EU governments not to go ahead with the plan

24 May 2018: The Israeli Supreme Court fully backs the army’s policy of shooting unarmed Palestinian protesters in the occupied Gaza Strip

15 May 2018: The mayor of the Israeli town of Kiryat Shmona calls for a college to expel Palestinian Israeli students who held a minute’s silence in memory of those killed by the Israeli army in the besieged Gaza Strip during the Great March of Return

Head of Hamas' political bureau Islamic Haniyeh joins the Great March of Return on the Gaza-Israel border on 15 May 2018 [Mohammed Asad/Middle East Monitor]

Israeli forces fire tear gas at Palestinian protesters during the Great March of Return at the Gaza-Israel border on 15 May 2018 [Mohammed Asad/Middle East Monitor]

07 May 2018: Palestinians in the Gaza Strip will not be given special permits to travel to Jerusalem during the Muslim holy month of Ramadan this year following a ‘ situational assessment’ carried out by Israeli occupation forces

04 April 2018: The Israeli occupation authorities have completed building the part of the Separation Wall which snakes around the neighbourhood of Azzoun in the south of the occupied West Bank city of Qalqiliya

03 April 2018: The Palestine Liberation Organisation (PLO) has condemned the Israeli government for starting the construction of a railway that will cross occupied territory in the West Bank and East Jerusalem

02 April 2018: Israel’s occupation authorities prevented the call to prayer being made at Hebron’s Ibrahimi Mosque at least 52 times in March

31 March 2018: The Israel Defence Forces (IDF) used drones to drop tear gas canisters on the unarmed Palestinian civilians taking part in the Great March of Return in Gaza on Friday

29 March 2018: Israeli authorities issued construction tenders yesterday for 296 new housing units for Beit El, an illegal settlement in the occupied West Bank

29 March 2018: Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu yesterday asked the chairman of the government coalition to push the “Muezzin Bill”, which outlaws the Muslim call for prayer

28 March 2018: Two years after they were evicted by the authorities, Jewish settlers occupied two more Palestinian homes in the occupied West Bank city of Hebron

26 March 2018: Settlers unveil their new homes in Amichai, the first brand new settlement in the occupied West Bank in some two decades

25 March 2018: The Israeli Magistrate Court in Jerusalem rules that Jewish settlers can perform prayers at the gates of Al-Aqsa Mosque as this is ‘the best proof of the Israeli control of the area’

07 March 2018: Regulation that makes it easy to revoke the residency status of Palestinians living in East Jerusalem passes its second and third readings at the Israeli Knesset

07 March 2018: The Israeli Knesset passes a law allowing police to withhold the bodies of alleged Palestinian assailants, legislation adopted in response to a previous High Court ruling that prohibited the practice without an explicit law permitting it

04 March 2018: Arab residents of the Bedouin village of Umm Al-Hiran, located in Wadi Atir area of the Negev desert, receive Israeli demolition orders

28 February 2018: Jerusalem’s Church of the Holy Sepulchre reopens after Israel backtracks from a tax plan and draft property legislation that triggered a three-day protest

27 February 2018: The Israeli prime minister’s office announces that the Jerusalem Municipality has suspended plans to levy taxes on property owned by churches in the city

26 February 2018: Israel’s Knesset approves the first reading of a bill that would ban organisations critical of the country’s military, including Breaking the Silence. The bill needs to pass 2 more readings

26 February 2018: Israeli lawmakers agree to expand the jurisdiction of Israeli courts over “Area C” of the West Bank

26 February 2018: Over 40% of the graves in Israeli settlements in the occupied West Bank have been dug on privately owned Palestinian land, according to a new report by Israeli NGO Kerem Navot,  ‘Obviously, there is deliberate intent lurking behind the location of these cemeteries’

25 February 2018: Church leaders in Jerusalem close the Church of the Holy Sepulchre in protest at a new Israeli tax policy and a proposed land expropriation law which they called a ‘systematic and unprecedented attack against Christians in the Holy Land’

25 February 2018: The Israeli government will support a bill barring Palestinians from petitioning the High Court of Justice, a Knesset committee announces

22 February 2018: Israeli occupation forces blocked activists from army veterans’ group Breaking the Silence from entering an illegal Israeli settlement in Hebron to conduct tours

20 February 2018: Israeli police forces have been visiting Umm Al-Hiran, a Bedouin Palestinian village in the Negev, to plan ‘how to make the incursion and to destroy the village’ ahead of the eviction of its  residence to make way for a new Jewish town

20 February 2018Israeli MKs and minister are working to introduce a new copy of what is known as the ‘Muezzin Bill’ to give power to police to break into mosques to silence the Muslim call to prayer

19 February 2018: Israel’s Supreme Court agrees to the state’s request to hold a further hearing on the authorities’ withholding of Palestinian bodies, thus ‘delaying the scheduled repatriation of the bodies to their families’

17 February 2018: Israeli occupation forces complete the construction of a watchtower checkpoint at the Damascus Gate entrance of the Old City of Jerusalem

19 February 2018: Israeli occupation forces demand a Palestinian family in Hebron halt rooftop construction work despite the family having the required paperwork, according to the International Solidarity Movement

19 February 2018:  Israeli courts have backed the state’s position on the blockade of the occupied Gaza Strip ‘almost blindly’ over the last decade while ‘persistently disregard[ed] international law’, a new report by Israeli NGO Gisha says

18 February 2018: Israeli authorities in Jerusalem begin construction of a new checkpoint on the edge of Al-Walaja, in what has been described as ‘the final step in blocking the village’s access to a national park built on land confiscated from its residents’

18 February 2018: Israeli Ministerial Committee for Legislation approves a bill which allows occupation forces to deduct the salaries of Palestinian prisoners, freed prisoners and martyrs’ families from taxes collected on behalf of Palestinian Authority (PA). The bill must not pass a Knesset vote before being brought in to law

16 February 2018: Israel’s Ministerial Committee for Legislation will consider on Sunday a bill that would see Israeli law formally applied to the Jordan Valley region of the occupied West Bank

16 February 2018: Israel’s Finance Minister Moshe Kahlon is ‘set to approve in the coming days new regulations to prevent organisations and individuals who support a boycott of Israel from receiving various tax breaks or from participating in government bids’

13 February 2018: Israel approves the ‘Ariel University Bill’ which will extend the Israeli education law on academic institution based in illegal settlements in the occupied West Bank,

09 February 2018: Israel has sent the family of Abdullah Ghneimat, a Palestinian in his early twenties who was crushed to death by an Israeli army jeep, a bill for $28,000 for damage caused to the vehicle which killed him

07 February 2018: Israel advances a plan to build a walkway though the Mount of Olives in East Jerusalem to connect two settler residential compounds in the Palestinian At-Tur neighbourhood

07 February 2018: During a Knesset report on the policy of refusing to return the bodies of Palestinians killed by Israeli forces to their families for burial, officials are urged to ‘throw it into the sea’, ‘we should not return bodies. We should demolish homes’, others say

05 February 2018: A number of Israeli politicians, including coalition government members, call for ‘practical moves’ to be taken to annex settlements in the occupied West Bank while Donald Trump heads the White House

04 February 2018Israel grants legal status to the unauthorised outpost of Havat Gilad in the occupied West Bank

05 February 2018: The Israeli army is imposing ‘harsh travel restrictions’ in an effort to ‘drive Palestinians out’ in the southern Hebron Hills area of the occupied West Bank, according to human rights NGO B’Tselem

02 February 2018: In a report, the EU Heads of Mission in Jerusalem warn that Israel is using tourism to legitimise its illegal settlement construction with ‘local Palestinian residents absent from the narrative being promoted to the visitors’

30 January 2018: The Israeli occupation army maintains a ‘policy of suppressing demonstrations in Gaza with live fire’ against  demonstrators ‘who are not endangering them’,  NGO B’Tselem reports

31 January 2018: Israel’s Defence Minister Avigdor Lieberman announces via Twitter that the illegal settlement outpost of Havat Gilad will be ‘legalised’ on Sunday.

01 February 2018: The Israeli municipality in Jerusalem begins to impose taxes on church and United Nations properties in occupied East Jerusalem

30 Janaury 2018: The Knesset passes in its first reading a bill extending the authority of the Israeli Higher Education Council over higher education institutions in illegal settlements built on Palestinian lands occupied in 1967

30 January 2018The Israeli army is set to take full ‘security control’ of Palestinian neighbourhoods in occupied East Jerusalem that lie behind the illegal Separation Wall, in particular the areas of  Kafr Aqab and the Shuafat refugee camp

15 January 2018: Israeli Jewish settlers in the occupied West Bank launched field teams of photographers and videographers to take pictures of Palestinian protesters to help the Israeli occupation forces to identify and arrest them easily

January 2018: Israel’s Ministry of Justice recommends punitive measures be imposed on men who marry more than one woman, including reducing child and family allowances, in an effort to stifle the increase in the Arab population

07 January 2017: Israel publishes a “blacklist” of 22 NGOs from Europe, the United States, South America and Africa whose activists are barred from entry

26 December 2017: Poverty levels among Israel’s Arab citizens have increased as a result of the government’s racist policies, official data shows

24 December 2017: The leader of Al-Araqeeb village receives 10 month sentence, $10,300 fine and expelled from his home by Israel

6 December 2017: Israeli occupation bulldozers raze the village of Al-Araqeeb in the Negev area for the 122nd time leaving its residents homeless despite the stormy and cold weather.

Image of Israeli bulldozers demolishing Palestinian homes on 2 February 2016 [Wisam Hashlamoun/Apaimages]

Israeli bulldozers can be seen demolishing Palestinian homes on 2 February 2016 [Wisam Hashlamoun/Apaimages]

30 November 2017: 10 US Senators urge Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu not to demolish Palestinian villages in the occupied West Bank, reports the Jewish Telegraphic Agency

16 November 2017: Israeli authorities demolish the Palestinian village of Al-Araqeeb in the Negev Desert for the 121st time

25 October 2017: Staff from the Israel Land Authority (ILA) accompanied Israel Police and bulldozers who raided Al-Araqeeb village and demolished the makeshift homes made out of tin that the residents build every time the village is demolished. This is the 120th time that the village has been razed

3 October 2017: Israeli bulldozers, accompanied by police forces, raided the Arab Bedouin village of Al-Araqeeb in the Negev region and demolished it for the 119th time

14 September 2017: Israeli army bulldozers demolish the village of Al-Araqeeb in the Negev for the 118th time

5 September 2017: Israeli authorities demolished 1,158 homes belonging to Israeli Arabs in the Negev between August 2016 and August 2017, a report issued by Coexistence Club in the Negev reveals

24 August 2017: An Israeli court has ordered residents of Al-Araqeeb village to pay the government $541,000 for the cumulative cost of destroying their homes 116 times since 2010

09 November 2017: 30 families in the Jordan Valley receive eviction notices dated 1 November warning them they have eight days to evacuate their homes before they are demolished. They now live in constant fear of raids and forced displacement

10 November 2017: Amendments are made to the proposed ‘Jewish Nation-State Law’ allowing it to head for its first vote in the Knesset next month

09 November 2017: Israel plans to double the number of settlers in the Jordan Valley area because the area ‘must be strengthened’, Israeli Radio reports

08 November 2017: Israel approves building permits for 240 new homes in settlements in occupied East Jerusalem, including 90 units in Gilo and another 150 in Ramat Shlomo

08 November 2017: Israeli occupation forces destroy a Palestinian-owned commercial building in the French Hill district of occupied East Jerusalem. This is the third time that the building has been destroyed by the Israelis

08 November 2017: Israel’s Transportation Minister Yisrael Katz demands the dismissal of a civil servant who supports the Palestinian right of return, saying ‘a legal way has to be found to immediately terminate the new employee’s employment at the National Road Safety Authority’

Israeli Minister of Transportation and Intelligence Yisrael Katz [File photo]

Israeli Minister of Transportation and Intelligence Yisrael Katz [File photo]

06 November 2017: Israeli occupation forces have began clear its own landmines from Palestinian-owned land adjacent to the illegal settlement of Karnei Shomron near Qalqiliya. The clearance programme is expected to last two months; more than 2,200 landmines are believed to have been laid in the area, which covers around 20 acres of stolen land

24 October 2017: Israeli occupation forces once again deliver demolition notices to Palestinians in the occupied East Jerusalem neighbourhood of Silwan

26 September 2017: Illegal Israeli settlers call for the Israeli government to enact harsher punishments on the families of Palestinian prisoners through ‘deny citizenship’ and ‘carry out more house demolitions’

26 September 2017: Israeli MK Amir Ohana proposes a bill which would ‘expand the interior minister’s authority to revoke permanent residence status for security reasons’ in an effort to ‘circumvent’ controversial court rulings against revoking residency of Arabs in Jerusalem

11 September 2017: Israel begins construction of its first new illegal settlement in the occupied West Bank. The new settlement, known as Amichai, is being built to house about 300 hardline residents of the illegal West Bank Jewish outpost of Amona. The Cabinet allocated $16 million for its construction

11 September 2017: Israeli authorities are making it increasingly difficult for Palestinians’ foreign spouses to stay in the occupied West Bank, reducing the length of the validity of visas, the process for obtaining permanent residency has been frozen

05 April 2017: Israel passes a law that increases enforcement against unauthorized building following a vote of 44 to 33. The law it is expected to disproportionately affect unlicensed construction in Arab communities. Dubbed the ‘Kaminitz Law’, the bill increases the maximum custodial sentence for anyone convicted of building without permits to three years, from two.

2017: Israel announces plans to limit the travel of those arriving in Ben-Gurion airport to the Palestinian Occupied Territories.

2016: NGO ‘Funding Transparency’ Law

Israel begins plans to pass a law that will ban the Muslim call for prayer on loudspeakers between 23:00 and 07:00.

People protest in Gaza against the new Israeli law to ban the Islamic call to prayer in Jerusalem [apaimages]

People protest in Gaza against the new Israeli law to ban the Islamic call to prayer in Jerusalem [apaimages]

Stop-and-Frisk Law – Amendment: The new law allows police to stop and frisk people in case of a reasonable suspicion that he or she is about to commit a violent act. The law was passed amid the recent wave of violence.

Anti-Terror (Counter-Terrorism) Law: This contains broad and vague definitions of terrorism and terrorist organisations often exploited by law enforcement authorities to criminalise legitimate actions of Palestinian citizens of Israel and Palestinian residents of the Occupied Territories.

Expulsion of MKs Law – Amendment: The bill allows for the Israeli Jewish majority in the Knesset to further delegitimise and marginalise the elected political representatives of the Palestinian minority in Israel and to oust Arab MKs and political lists on the basis of purely political and ideological considerations.

2016: NGO “Funding Transparency” Law: This requires NGOs that receive 50 per cent or more of their funding from foreign governments to make it clear in every instance. Organisations that express views critical to the government’s policies, particularly those policies which discriminate against or otherwise harm Palestinians in the Occupied Territories, are the main targets of this law.

Mandatory minimum sentences for convicted stone-throwers – Amendment: A mandatory minimum prison sentence on a convicted stone-thrower or similar acts is set at “one-fifth of the maximum sentence” which equates to either two or four years.

Revoking child allowances from parents of children convicted of security offences: This removes child allowances for parents of a child convicted on criminal charges.

2015- Fines on parents of stone-throwers – Amendment: Direct fines are imposed on the parents of minors convicted of committing an offence listed in the Israeli Penal Code; for example stone-throwing. This discriminates against the parents of Palestinian children within Israel or residents of East Jerusalem brought before Israeli civil courts.

2014-March: Increased Governance and Raising the Qualifying Election Threshold – Bill to Amend Basic Law: The Government: This raises the threshold percentage of votes required for political parties in order to obtain seats in the Knesset to 3.25 per cent. This undermines the parliamentary representation of Palestinian Arabs and prevents Arab parties from contesting the elections within multiple party lists.

Civil Wrongs Law – Amendment: This creates further obstacles to justice and accountability for civilian victims harmed by Israeli security forces in the Occupied Territories.

July- Income Tax Ordinance – Amendment: This grants a 35 per cent tax exemption on donations to institutions that promote “Zionist settlement”. It differentiates between public institutions on political and ideological grounds.

2012 May: Israeli Prisons Ordinance Amendment No. 43: This was passed allowing for restrictions on security prisoners’ access to legal counsel for three months at a time, which can be extended for another three months.

Israeli Prisons Ordinance – Amendment: This allows the Israel Prison Service (IPS) to prohibit prisoners involved in “security crimes” from meeting their lawyers due to suspicion that the meeting will lead to the transfer of information relating to a “terror organisation”. This law targets Palestinian prisoners and Palestinian lawyers.

Anti-Boycott Law: This prohibits the promotion of academic, economic or cultural boycotts of Israeli citizens and organisations and against Israeli institutions or illegal Israeli settlements in the West Bank. A civil lawsuit can be filed against anyone who calls for a boycott, namely the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions movement.

[file photo]

[file photo]

Admissions Committees Law: The Admissions Committees Law legalises Committees that operate in small community towns built on state land in the Negev and Galilee. They are permitted to filter on the basis of ethnicity applicants for housing units and plots of land; Arab Palestinians are the main victims of this process.

Citizenship Law: This allows courts to revoke the citizenship of persons convicted of treason, espionage, assisting the enemy in time of war, violating state sovereignty and acts of terrorism. The law was proposed following the arrest and indictment of Arab civil society leader Ameer Makhoul on charges of espionage and has since been used discriminately against Palestinians.

Nakba Law: The Finance Minister can reduce state funding or support to an institution if it holds an event that rejects the existence of Israel as a “Jewish and democratic state” or commemorates “Israel’s Independence Day or the day on which the state was established as a day of mourning.” The law deprives Arab citizens of commemorating the Nakba in a way that is an integral part of their history.

2011Foreign Government Funding Law: This imposes invasive reporting requirements on NGOs, requiring them to submit and publish quarterly reports on any funding received from foreign governments or publicly-funded foreign donors. Palestinian NGOs in Israel and all NGOs which promote Palestinian rights are particularly vulnerable since they do not seek funding from Israeli governmental sources and have limited access to private funding.

Extension of Detention – Criminal Procedure Law: Designed to extend the harsh detention procedures for those suspected of security offences. Again, this law is used exclusively against Palestinians.

Negev Development Authority Law: “Individual settlements” are used to provide individual Jewish Israeli families with potentially thousands of acres of land for their exclusive use. In the Negev, these settlements were seen as part of a plan for “saving” the land.

Image of illegal settlements in the West Bank on 7 February 2017 [Wisam Hashlamoun/Apaimages]

Illegal settlements in the West Bank [Wisam Hashlamoun/Apaimages]

Absorption of Discharged Soldiers Law: Jewish Israeli students living in the NPA will be granted a “compensation package”. Since Palestinian Arab citizens of Israel are exempt from military service they are excluded from receiving these state-allocated benefits and discriminated against on the basis of their national belonging.

Land Ordinance Law: This allows Israel to confiscate land for “public purposes” and has been used to confiscate Palestinian-owned land in Israel.

2010 Termination of Proceedings and Deletion of Records in the Disengagement Plan Law: This exempts anyone who was convicted in relation to their opposition to Israel’s 2005 Gaza disengagement plan from legal sanction, provided they have not received a prison sentence. This established a separate legal process for people who were charged when demonstrating against the Gaza disengagement from those charged for other political demonstrations, thus discriminating on ideological grounds.

Nakba journey - Palestinians fleeing during the Nakba in 1948
More than 1 million Palestinians were displaced in 1948
Relive the journey of Nakba refugees

Regional Councils Law: This law, which grants the Interior Minister absolute power to declare the postponement of the first election of a Regional Council, was passed shortly before elections were due to take place in the Abu Basma Regional Council, which includes ten Arab Bedouin villages in the Negev.

Israel Land Administration Law: Enforced land privatisation, especially of land owned by Palestinian refugees and internally displaced persons, as well as land on which settlements are built in occupied East Jerusalem and the Golan Heights.

The Economic Efficiency Law – Legislative Amendments: Classifying towns, villages and areas as “National Priority Areas” (NPAs), this allows for the allocation of state resources without criteria; 553 Jewish towns and only 4 small Arab villages are classified as NPAs with “A” status.

2009 Economic Efficiency Law: This law stipulates that children who do not receive the vaccinations recommended by the Ministry of Health will no longer be provided with “child allowances”. This mainly affects Arab Bedouin children living in the Negev due to the lack of availability of vaccinations.

Absorption of Discharged Soldiers Law – Amendment No. 7: The benefits package available to Jewish Israelis adding to the already extensive educational benefits package enjoyed by discharged soldiers in Israel is not available for Palestinian Arab citizens of Israel due to them being exempt from military service and so excluded from receiving these state-allocated benefits.

2008 Criminal Procedure Law – Interrogating Suspects – Amendment No. 4: This exempts the police and the Israeli Security Agencies from recording audio and video documentation of interrogations of suspects and is used exclusively against Palestinians.

2006- Criminal Procedure Law: This law removes a number of essential procedural safeguards for detainees suspected of security offences and is used solely against Palestinians.

1960-2003

2003- Citizenship and Entry into Israel Law: This bans the unification of the family where one spouse is an Israeli citizen (usually applied to Palestinian citizens) and the other is a resident of the Occupied Palestinian Territories. An additional amendment in 2007 expanded the ban to include citizens and residents of Iran, Lebanon, Syria and Iraq. Although the law was originally a temporary order, it has been used repeatedly, making it a permanent law.

1998- Hebrew Date Law: The use of the Hebrew calendar in all correspondence and publications issued by the state authorities does not recognise the use of the Islamic calendar.

1994- Knesset Law: In the opening session of the Knesset excerpts from The Declaration of the Establishment of the State of Israel will be read out to emphasise the exclusive connection of the state to the Jewish people.

The Golan Heights Law: This law is another annexation law which aims to provide a legal defence for the application of Israeli law in the Syrian Golan Heights occupied by Israel since 1967.

Image of Israeli and UN forces at the Golan Heights border [Escla/Wikipedia]

Image of Israeli and UN forces at the Golan Heights border [Escla/Wikipedia]

Interpretation Law: Article 24 states that the Hebrew versions of laws will be the guiding versions, which disregards Article 82 of the Palestine Order-in-Council (1922), which states that both Hebrew and Arabic are official state languages.

1981Public Lands Law (Eviction of Squatters): An amendment to the law, introduced in 2005 expanded the powers of authorities to operate through administrative orders to evacuate land in accordance with the law. The 2005 amendment was aimed against the Arab Bedouin population of the Negev.

1980- Basic Law: Jerusalem, Capital of Israel: “Jerusalem, complete and united, is the capital of Israel” removes any connection for Palestinians and insists that the Occupied East of the city is part of the State of Israel.

1971- Religious Jewish Services Law: Religious councils in Jewish towns, cities and settlements can be established but no parallel law to authorise the establishment of non-Jewish religious councils exists.

1967- Protection of Holy Sites Law: The Ministry of Religious Affairs has declared 135 Jewish sites as holy sites, although Muslim, Christian and Druze holy places have still yet to be recognised as holy sites.

National Planning and Building Law – Limitation of Water, Electricity and Telephone: Article 157A prohibits national utility companies from connecting a building to national electricity, water and telephone networks if it lacks a building permit. This has been used exclusively to dislodge residents from the unrecognised Arab Bedouin villages in the Negev.

National Planning and Building Law: This does not require Council and District Committees to include Arab-Palestinian representatives.

1965– Broadcasting Authority Law: Broadcast programmes must reinforce the Zionist identity of the state of Israel as a Jewish and democratic state and reflect the life of Jews in the Diaspora communities. Arabic language channels must promote the “understanding and peace with the neighbouring states in accordance with the basic goals of the state.”

1960- Basic Law: Israel Lands: The ownership of “Israel lands” cannot be transferred in any manner except to Jews only.

1960- Israel Land Administration Law: The government is able to nominate members to the discriminatory “Israel Land Administration Council” which determines and formulates Israel’s land policy within the state.

1945-1960

1958- Basic Law: The Knesset: Arab political candidates are disqualified from participating in the elections for the Knesset if the existence of the State of Israel as the state of the Jewish people is denied, as well as the democratic nature of the state and incitement to racism.

1953- Jewish National Fund Law: The Jewish National Fund was established in 1901 to collect funds for purchasing land for the exclusive benefit of the Jewish people.

1953- State Education Law: The law establishes separate, independent systems and secular state and state religious schools, to maintain a distinct Jewish community, Jewish culture and Zionist ideology.

1953- Land Acquisition Law (Actions and Compensation): Approximately 93 per cent of the land in Israel is owned by the state. Only 3-3.5 per cent is owned by the Arab population, compared to 48 per cent Arab ownership in 1948.

1952- World Zionist Organisation-Jewish Agency (Status) Law: This law authorises the World Zionist Organisation, the Jewish Agency and other Zionist bodies to function in Israel as quasi-governmental entities to advance the goals of the Zionist project.

1952- Entry into Israel Law: This law governs the entry into Israel of non-citizens of the state. It grants preferential treatment to Oleh [a Jewish person who migrates to Israel under the Law of Return].

1952- Citizenship Law: Article 2(a) of the Citizenship Law stipulates that, “Every emigrant under the Law of Return will become a citizen of Israel as a direct result of the return.” Article 3 of the law deprives Palestinians who were residents of Palestine prior to 1948 of the right to gain citizenship or residence status in Israel.

1950- Law of Return: Every Jew who migrated to Israel automatically became a citizen of the state, no matter where they were born. No comparable law exists to guarantee the rights of Palestinians to migrate or receive citizenship, even if they were born in the area that is now the State of Israel.

1950Absentees’ Property Law: People who were expelled or who fled after November 1947 due to the war, as well as their movable and immovable property, are marked as “absentees”. Property belonging to absentees was placed under the control of the State of Israel and the Absentees’ Property Law was used by Israel to possess land belonging to internal and external Palestinian refugees.

1949- State Stamp Law: The state stamp is placed on all official documents; it consists of the Star of David and the Menorah (candelabrum).

1945– Law and Government Ordinance, Article 18A: designates the official holidays of the state to be Jewish holy days. The only other official state holiday is Israel’s Independence Day.