TEL AVIV: The Israeli parliament has passed another controversial legislation allowing the government to deport family members of individuals whom Israeli authorities classify as ‘terrorists’.
The new law which authorised the government to deport its citizens was passed by the Knesset with 61 votes to 41 votes, Al Jazeera reported.
Israeli Parliament has labelled all Palestinian factions as terrorist organisations and has made it clear that any sympathy for Gaza victims is deemed as supporting terrorism.
Hanoch Milwidsky of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s Likud party presented the bill which empowers the interior minister to deport relatives of alleged Hamas members who resisted Israeli defence forces. The bill includes terms such as expressing support or identification deemed as terrorist acts added with failing to report such information.
Residents of occupied East Jerusalem will be under the jurisdiction of this law but it is unclear how it will be applied to the occupied West Bank.
The law also includes Israeli citizens who could face deportation but their citizenship will not be revoked and they could retain their citizenship even after expulsion.
Fourteen days is the time given to people to defend themselves against deportation orders if faced with the charges while Hamas sympathizers will get punishment from seven to fifteen years for citizens while Israeli legal residents charged with the same crime could face 10 to 20 years.
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Eran Shamir-Borer from the Israel Democracy Institute has stated the law to be unconstitutional and will be challenged in the Supreme Court.
“The bottom line is this is completely non-constitutional and a clear conflict with Israel’s core values,” he said.
The Israeli parliament has also passed a law that minors under the age of 14 charged with murder and actions against Israeli forces will face five years in prison.
National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir sought legislation to cover the immediate family members of Hamas militants who fought with Israeli forces.
There is another alarming legislation which allows the Ministry of Education to remove teachers who were deemed sympathizers of Hamas and schools run by Palestinians and Israeli citizens in East Jerusalem.
The new legislation from Knesset depicts an increasingly hardline stance as Israeli aggression was criticised by the United Nations and the world for its indiscriminate killing of women and children besides bombing the hospitals.
