A month and a half after the "Family Reunification Law" fell in the Knesset plenum, the Population and Immigration Authority recorded a huge increase in applications by Palestinians living in Judea and Samaria to obtain full Israeli citizenship.
Yonatan Jakubowicz, an external adviser to Interior Minister Ayelet Shaked and who until recently headed the Center for Immigration Policy, revealed the numbers in a Twitter tweet.
He wrote that "since the repeal of the law, more than 1,000 applications for family reunification of Palestinians have been submitted," warning that "this is a tenfold increase from previous years before the repeal of the law, and twice the number of applications for family reunification submitted from all over the world online."
According to Jakubowicz, "At this rate, more than 10,000 applications will be submitted each year."
Since the repeal of the Citizenship Law, more than 1,000 applications for the unification of Palestinian families have been submitted.
At this rate, over ten thousand applications will be submitted each year.
This is an increase of * ten times * from previous years before the repeal of the law, and twice as many of all family reunification applications submitted from the rest of the world online.
- Yonatan Jakubowicz (@Yonatan_Jaku) August 20, 2021
As will be recalled, the amendment to the Citizenship Law, also known as the Family Reunification Law, did not win a majority in the Knesset plenum.
Opposition members on the right voted against the law even though in principle they support it.
On the other hand, in the coalition member of the coalition, one MK also voted against, and thus no majority was in favor of the law.
Interior Minister Ayelet Shaked, who is in charge of the Immigration Authority, expressed hope that she would be able to respond in the negative to the many Palestinian requests by legal means.
However, it seems that due to the repeal of the law this is impossible, and in the end there will be no escape from approving the applications.
Summary of the stormy night in the plenum: The Citizenship Law fell in a vote // Archive photo: Knesset channel
It should be noted that behind one application for family unification are sometimes several persons, since if one of the parents is the applicant - and this is the case in most cases - then the rest of his family members are also entitled to full citizenship. This means that many thousands of Palestinian residents of Judea and Samaria will become Israeli citizens - a process that has many demographic and security implications.
