Israel has revoked the travel permit of Riad Malki, the Palestinian Foreign Minister, as part of a series of punitive steps against the Palestinians that Israel’s new hard-line government announced days ago.
Riad Malki disclosed in a statement that he was returning from the Brazilian President’s inauguration when he was informed that Israel has rescinded his travel permit, which allows top Palestinian officials to travel easily in and out of the occupied West Bank, unlike ordinary Palestinians.
It was not clear whether the permits of other officials had been revoked as well.
Israel’s government on Friday, January 6, 2023 approved the steps to penalize the Palestinians in retaliation for them pushing the U.N.’s highest judicial body to give its opinion on the Israeli occupation.
Rulings by the International Court of Justice are not binding, but they can be influential on world opinion.
The decision emphasizes the tough line the current government is already taking toward the Palestinians just days into its tenure.
In east Jerusalem, the centre of Israeli-Palestinian tensions, Israeli police revealed that they broke up a meeting by Palestinian parents about their children’s education, claiming it was unlawfully funded by the Palestinian Authority.
Police said the operation came at the command of National Security Minister, Itamar Ben-Gvir, an ultranationalist with a long record of anti-Arab rhetoric and acts who now oversees the police.
The Palestinian Authority was created to administer Gaza and parts of the occupied West Bank. Israel opposes any official business being carried out by the Palestinian Authority in east Jerusalem, and police have in the past broken up events they alleged were linked to the Authority.
On Friday, the government’s Security Cabinet decided that Israel would withhold $39 million from the Palestinian Authority and transfer the funds instead to a compensation program for the families of Israeli victims of Palestinian militant attacks.
It also said Israel would further deduct revenue it typically transfers to the cash-strapped Palestinian Authority(PA), a sum equal to the amount the authority paid last year to families of Palestinian prisoners and those killed in the conflict, including militants implicated in attacks against Israelis.
The Palestinian leadership describes the payments as necessary social welfare, while Israel says the so-called Martyrs’ Fund incentivizes violence. Israel’s withheld funds threaten to aggravate the PA’s fiscal woes.
The Security Cabinet also targeted Palestinian officials directly, saying it would deny benefits to “VIPs who are leading the political and legal war against Israel.”
Palestinians Condemn Israel’s Decision
The Palestinians condemned the revoking of Malki’s permit, saying Israel should be the one being “punished for its violations against international law.”
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu informed a meeting of his Cabinet on Sunday, January 8, 2023 that the measures against the Palestinians were aimed at what he called “an extreme anti-Israel” step at the U.N.
Israel’s Defense Ministry confirmed that Malki’s permit had been revoked.
Meanwhile, Israel’s new Defense Minister, Yoav Gallant, disclosed that he was stripping three senior Palestinian officials of VIP privileges allowing them to enter Israel.
The move came after they visited an Arab citizen of Israel who was released from prison last week after serving 40 years for the murder of an Israeli soldier.
Israel captured east Jerusalem in the 1967 Mideast war and later annexed it, a move unrecognized by most of the international community.
Israel considers the city its undivided, eternal capital. The Palestinians seek the city’s eastern sector as the capital of their hoped-for state.
About a third of the city’s population is Palestinian and they have long endured neglect and discrimination at the hands of Israeli authorities, including in education, housing and public services.
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