Since 2023, Israel has intensified its efforts to strip Palestinian Jerusalemites of their legal status as part of the state’s larger campaign to fast-track the expulsion of Palestinians. According to Israeli rights group, HaMoked, Israel revoked the residency of 60 Palestinian Jerusalemites in 2024 and 61 in 2023. Since occupying East Jerusalem in 1967, Israel has revoked the status of nearly 15,000 Palestinian Jerusalemites claiming their status “expired of itself.” 1 On the legal front, several recent laws and amendments provide the state with relatively simple ways to strip Palestinians, whether residents or citizens, of their status, resulting in their deportation.

On February 15, 2023, Israel’s Knesset passed a law allowing the revocation of the citizenship or permanent residency of any Palestinian who has been convicted of “terrorism” by Israel who received money from the Palestinian Authority (PA) or on whose behalf money was received from the PA.2 Since the funds would already have passed hands, the law empowers the state to deport individuals who, at the time of accepting such funds, would have had no way to know the future draconian consequences of accepting them. Moreover, as it applies also to citizens, the law represents an extreme measure denying Palestinians of their right to citizenship, also known as “the right to have rights.”

On July 9, 2025, the Knesset passed an amendment to the state's Citizenship Law approving the revocation of status for Palestinians, whose relatives are convicted of terrorist acts—regardless of whether or not they have a connection to the family member or were involved in the incident.6 In response, Israeli rights groups—Association for Civil Rights in Israel, Physicians for Human Rights—Israel, and HaMoked— petitioned Israel's Supreme Court on August 17, 2025 to revoke the amendment to the law.7 The court gave the state until September 17, 2025 to respond to the petition.8

Not long after, on November 6, 2024, the Knesset passed a law permitting the government to deport relatives of individuals convicted of “terrorism” by Israel or held in custody on suspicion of “terrorist offenses,” but not charged. According to the law, which is called the Deportation of Families of Terrorists Law, 5785-2024, the family member can be deported if Israel alleges that he or she knew about the planned act of “terrorism” or expressed support for it. Palestinians with Israeli citizenship who met these criteria can be deported for 7 to 15 years; and Jerusalem residents for 10 to 20 years.9

“The law is problematic on so many levels,” Hadeel Abu Salih, an attorney with Adalah—The Legal Center for Arab Minority Rights who is representing one of the individuals facing deportation, told Jerusalem Story.10 “They ask [Palestinian] citizens and residents to do much more than any other resident or citizen when it comes to preventing the terror attack. The law asks them to do more than calling the police—to even prevent the crime themselves.”

Abu Salih explained that in Israel’s penal code, the act of not preventing a crime at the time constitutes a crime as well.

“And the second level, which they are using now, is when you are a family member of someone who committed a terror act and you published an incitement post, you will be deported. Like, that would be enough for you to be deported, although there are other laws that deal with incitement, like the anti-terror law. So they are taking crimes from other laws and using them as a tool in order to deport people,” Abu Salih said, noting how the Ministry of Interior isn’t required to disclose all of the evidence they’ve collected or claim to have collected in order to authorize a person’s deportation.

“It was clear to us, ever since they proposed this bill, that it was going to be used mostly against the [Palestinian] residents in Jerusalem, because that would make it easier for the state to revoke their status and to weaken it [with] time,” Abu Salih said.

Neither law specifies where the individual in question would be deported to, but Abu Salih explained what happens to such an individual once he or she is stripped of status and deported.

“They can’t practice their most basic rights, even if they are given temporary residency in the West Bank. [This] can only happen through the place in which they were born,” Abu Salih told Jerusalem Story. “We’re talking about a war crime. When you move people from [East] Jerusalem and to the [rest of the] West Bank, which are occupied territories, that is illegal according to international law.”

It’s important to note that even with their permanent-resident status, most Palestinian Jerusalemites are stateless. But once stripped of their residency, they become statusless as well—a condition in which you pretty much cannot do anything, even open a bank account or study.

“[This law] violates basic rights like the right to family and the right to dignity, and it de facto strips people of their residency rights. So there are multifaceted problems to this law,” Dani Shenhar, an attorney with HaMoked, an Israeli human rights group providing legal aid to Palestinians living under Israeli occupation, who also represents individuals facing deportation, told Jerusalem Story.11

In February 2025, Israel began implementing this Deportation of Families of Terrorists Law, with Israel’s Interior Minister Moshe Arbel seeking to deport three Palestinian Jerusalemites: Zeina Barbar, Tasmin Odeh, and Mohammad Abu Halwa, citing their alleged support for Palestinian factions on social media as incitement and therefore grounds for deportation. Like Attoun, Barbar was also released during the February 2025 prisoner exchange deal.12

In response, HaMoked and Adalah filed objections to the Ministry of the Interior on the aforementioned four cases, but have yet to receive a response. HaMoked and Adalah told Jerusalem Story that if the deportations go through, they will file a petition to Israel’s Supreme Court on the grounds that the legislation is unconstitutional.

Jerusalem Story tried to speak with Palestinian Jerusalemites facing deportation, but their lawyers advised waiting until after the Ministry of Interior releases its final decision on whether to enforce the deportation or not, which could come at any time.

Yet deportation isn’t the only way that Israel is targeting Palestinians’ civil rights.

On March 31, 2025, the Israeli Knesset passed an amendment to the National Insurance Law (Amendment 256) that will disqualify individuals convicted of “serious terrorist offenses, treason or serious espionage” and sentenced to at least 10 years, and their relatives, from receiving National Insurance Institute (NII) benefits, such as social security. The amendment also revokes an income support allowance, administered through another law, for such individuals. The revocation of benefits would last from the moment of disqualification for the duration of the person’s life.13

As of this writing, the Jerusalem Legal Aid and Human Rights Center (JLAC) is already handling two cases of Palestinian prisoners who have lost their insurance benefits after being released, one of whom was also released as part of Israel’s prisoner exchange deal with Hamas in February 2025.

According to JLAC’s Jerusalem branch director, Rami Saleh, the state said the benefits were being revoked because the individuals weren’t living in Jerusalem when they were arrested. However, the government has suggested that the law could be used to target those released through future ceasefire agreements. According to the Knesset’s press release on this law, dated March 31, 2025, the explanatory notes to the bill said:

“It’s part of the Israeli policies of collective punishment,” Saleh told Jerusalem Story.15 “If you are looking to request freedom, to request to be independent, whether in Gaza or in the West Bank or in East Jerusalem, [Israel will] put more and more pressure on you.”

On January 21, 2025, the Knesset passed a law criminalizing the denial of the events of October 7, 2023, mandating stiff jail sentences.

A month later on February 19, 2025, the Knesset passed a law banning internationals from entering or residing in Israel, if they, or the organization they are a part of, deny the Holocaust, the Hamas attack on October 7, 2023, or support the prosecution of Israeli soldiers for war crimes.16

“[When it comes to who is targeted by the law,] we can think of total foreigners. But we can also think of a Palestinian who has a temporary residency status,” Munir Nusseibeh, director and cofounder of Al-Quds Human Rights Clinic, said when explaining this bill’s implications.17

“For example, a Palestinian who applied for family unification—he or she has a temporary residency status [while the application is being considered],” Nusseibeh said. “This person will be denied that status.”

Targeting the personal status of Palestinians is part of Israel’s strategy to expel Palestinians en masse, Nusseibeh told Jerusalem Story.

“That’s something that is part of that identity of the state—always thinking about demography—how many Jews, how many Palestinians,” Nusseibeh said. “Jerusalem, for example, is an area where Israel has a lot of policies that control demography. But these policies are not always sufficient to change the demography drastically . . . [so Israel] always take advantage of any security claims and considerations in order to bring about further demographic change in Jerusalem and beyond in Palestine.”

“It’s a policy of displacement,” Nusseibeh said.

Ultimately, this new bulk of legislation Israel is churning out “fits with the overall Israeli methodology of continuously displacing Palestinians,” Nusseibeh said. “It’s very dangerous. It means that Israel will probably be displacing many, many innocent Palestinians.”