JERUSALEM (AP)Jan,8– Israel on Sunday revoked travel permits for the Palestinian foreign minister as part of a series of punitive measures against Palestinians announced days ago by Israel’s new hardline government.
In his statement, Riad Marqui said he was returning from the inauguration of the president of Brazil when he was informed that Israel had revoked his travel permit, whether or not other officials’ permits had also been revoked. is unknown.
On Friday, the Israeli government approved a move to punish Palestinians in retaliation for asking the UN’s top judicial body to comment on the Israeli occupation. The decisions of the International Court of Justice are not binding, but they can influence public opinion around the world.
The decision highlights the tough line the current government is already taking toward the Palestinians just days into its tenure. It comes at a time of spiking violence in the occupied West Bank and as peace talks are a distant memory.
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 told a meeting of his Cabinet on Sunday 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at what he called “an extreme anti-Israel” step at the U.N. Israel’s Defense Ministry confirmed that Malki’s permit had been revoked.
On Friday, the government’s Security Cabinet decided 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.
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.”
Meanwhile, Israel’s new defense minister, Yoav Gallant, said he was stripping three senior Palestinian officials of VIP privileges allowing them to enter Israel. The move comes after visiting an Israeli Arab citizen who was released from prison last week after serving 40 years for the murder of an Israeli soldier.
Saturday’s police operation came days after Ben-Gvir took office. Police claimed the parents’ conference was funded by Palestinian authorities, attended by PA activists, and violated Israeli law. Police said they stopped the rally on Ben-Gwir’s orders and disrupted the rally. Police refused to provide evidence to support their claims, and a spokesperson for Ben-Gvir referred the question to police. The Palestinian Authority was established to administer Gaza and parts of the occupied West Bank. Israel has refused all public business the PA conducts in East Jerusalem, and police have in the past disbanded events it claimed were PA-related.
Israel occupied and later annexed East Jerusalem in the 1967 Middle East War, a move that most of the international community did not recognize. Israel sees this city as an undivided eternal capital. Palestinians are seeking the eastern part of the city as the capital of their desired nation. About a third of the city’s population is Palestinian, and they have long faced neglect and discrimination from Israeli authorities, including in the areas of education, housing and public services.
