The Israeli government decided today to deny Palestinians family reunification right, confirming charges that Israel acts as an apartheid regime against the Palestinians.
Right-wing Israeli Minister of Interior, Eyelet Shaked, a staunch opponent of uniting Palestinian families, pushed her government to support a law that bans Palestinians from the occupied territories married to Palestinians living in Israel from uniting with their spouses and families inside Israel or in occupied East Jerusalem by denying them residency or citizenship.
The Israeli parliament, the Knesset, voted in July not to renew the law that bans Palestinian family reunification, which comes up every year since 2003 for a vote and is constantly upheld, opening the way for tens of thousands of Palestinians who applied over the years to be unified with their families inside Israel or in annexed East Jerusalem to demand a review of their application.
However, Shaked, in her capacity as interior minister, refused to consider any application since the law was repealed in July despite an Israeli High Court order to explain why she refuses to consider these applications after families have petitioned the High Court to rule on their application for family reunification based on the July vote that ended the ban.
Shaked said after the government decision today that the law will be brought again before the Knesset on Wednesday for a vote, expecting that the parliament is going this time to uphold the ban.
International and Israeli rights groups, the latest of which was Amnesty International, have charged Israel of being an apartheid state in the way it treats the Palestinians under its rule.
Source: Palestinian News & Information Agency