Israel is beginning to implement a law stipulating that terrorists who hold Israeli citizenship and received payments from the Palestinian Authority will be deported from Israel and stripped of their citizenship.
Coalition Chairman Ofir Katz of the Likud Party, the initiator of the law passed by the Knesset three years ago, announced Tuesday that the steps required to deport two terrorists have been completed, marking the first time the law has been used. According to Katz, the deportation of “many additional terrorists are in process.”
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Coalition Chairman Ofir Katz of the Likud Party is the initiator of the law
(Photo: Shilo Shalom)
The law, which was approved by the Knesset in February 2023, applies to individuals who were convicted of a terrorist act, sentenced to actual prison time, and who themselves—or through someone acting on their behalf—received a salary or compensation from the Palestinian Authority. If all three conditions are met, the law requires the interior minister, within seven working days, to notify the individual of the intent to petition the court to revoke their Israeli citizenship, with the individual given the opportunity to appeal. If the presumption that the individual receives stipends from the Palestinian Authority is not rebutted, and the court revokes the citizenship, the terrorist will be deported from Israel to the territory of the Palestinian Authority upon completion of their prison sentence.
According to Katz’s announcement, the first terrorists to be deported under the law are Mahmoud Ahmed and Muhammad Ahmad Hussein al-Halasi, after authorities confirmed that both received funds from the Palestinian Authority during their imprisonment.
Mahmoud Ahmed was convicted of carrying out a series of shooting attacks against Israeli soldiers and civilians. He was sentenced to 23 years in prison and was released in 2024. Muhammad Ahmad Hussein al-Halasi was convicted of stabbing two women in the Armon Hanatziv neighborhood of Jerusalem in 2016 and was sentenced to 18 years in prison. He is expected to be deported upon his release, at the end of his sentence.
“I signed this morning the revocation of citizenship and deportation of two Israeli terrorists who carried out stabbing and shooting attacks against Israeli civilians and were rewarded for their heinous acts by the Palestinian Authority," Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said onMonday. "I thank Coalition Chairman Ofir Katz for leading the law that will expel them from the State of Israel, and many more like them are on the way.”
Katz said that "for three years I pressured the system to implement my law—and finally it is happening. This is how you fight terrorism. History is being made these days.”