West Bank, ALRAY - In its sitting on Wednesday, the Knesset Plenum voted to approve in preliminary reading the bill for revoking the citizenship or residency status of Palestinian ex-detainees for receiving funds from the Palestinian Authority, and be relocated at the end of his prison sentence to the Palestinian Authority territories.

The Hebrew newspaper Makor Rishon, stated that the bill for revoking the citizenship from Palestinian detainees who receive funds from PA is agreed upon by the from the opposition as well.  

“The bill was approved, thanks to a rare consensus between the coalition and the opposition,” Knesset Speaker Amir Ohana stated.

“When a person has been convicted of committing the offense of an act of terrorism and has been sentenced to prison, he shall be considered to have relinquished his citizenship or permanent residency license, as the case may be, if it is proved to the satisfaction of the Minister of Interior that he has received terrorism-linked funds from the Palestinian Authority. Such a person will be relocated at the end of his prison sentence to the Palestinian Authority territories,” the bill read.

MK Ahmad Tibi (Hadash-Ta'al) opposed: “Citizenship is a contract between the state and the citizen, and payments are not a reason to revoke citizenship. For a murder there is a court that judges people. There is a ploy in this bill, designed to make the bill apply only to Arabs. None of you thought to apply the bill to Rabin's murderer or to the murderers of the Dawabshe family or [Muhammad] Abu Khdeir. This is fundamentally racist legislation."​

The first bill was supported by 71 MKs versus nine MKs who opposed it, and it will be turned over along with the other bills to the House Committee, which will decide which committee will prepare the bill for its first reading