RAMALLAH, February 11, 2026 (WAFA) – The Commission of Detainees and Ex-Detainees Affairs and the Palestinian Prisoner’s Society (PPS) stated that the Israeli occupation authorities’ decision to deport two Jerusalemite prisoners—one of whom is a former detainee—constitutes a grave and alarming precedent that paves the way for targeting thousands of detainees and former prisoners in Jerusalem and the 1948 territories, including both holders of Israeli citizenship and Jerusalem identity cards.
In a joint statement issued on Wednesday, the Commission and the Society explained that the decision is based on a discriminatory law—the revocation of citizenship and residency law enacted by the occupation in 2023—which is regarded as one of the most consequential legislative measures aimed at eroding the Palestinian presence in the territories occupied in 1948 and in the city of Jerusalem.
The statement noted that this decision comes in response to declarations by occupation leaders—foremost among them Netanyahu, who signed it—who make no attempt to conceal their intention to displace and deport Palestinians. On the contrary, they openly proclaim such crimes before the eyes and ears of the world, competing in displays of escalating brutality.
The two institutions clarified that deportations under this discriminatory law are carried out either to the West Bank or the Gaza Strip. According to the families of the two prisoners, they have not received any official notification; instead, they learned through media reports that their citizenship and residency had been revoked and that deportation orders had been issued against them.
The Commission and the Society emphasized that this dangerous precedent marks a new phase in the targeting of detainees and former prisoners in Jerusalem and the 1948 territories. It is part of a systematic policy that affects them and their families through multiple instruments—most notably discriminatory legislation that impacts various aspects of their lives—aimed at forcibly displacing citizens through comprehensive restrictions imposed by the occupation’s apparatus and policies.
The two institutions affirmed that Jerusalemites, even prior to the genocide, have been subjected to an escalating series of Israeli measures constituting an extension of the Nakba against them. Detentions have intensified, alongside demolitions, land seizures, and property confiscations, in addition to deportation orders affecting thousands, particularly from Al-Aqsa Mosque and its surroundings. They added that exorbitant taxes, fines, and financial penalties amounting to millions of shekels annually, coupled with organized acts of terror, collectively serve as instruments of systematic forced displacement.
The Commission and the Society stated that the implementation of this law, combined with the occupation’s intention to expand its scope, constitutes a new tool of forced displacement cloaked in a legal guise.
The two institutions renewed their call to UN bodies to end the persistent state of inaction regarding escalating Israeli crimes, which they described as an extension of genocide through the collective targeting of Palestinian citizens, the destruction of their livelihoods, and their coercion into forced displacement.
They further affirmed that deportation constitutes one of the gravest of these measures, amounting to both a war crime and a crime against humanity under the Geneva Conventions and the Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court.
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