West Bank student’s deportation upheld

Deported from the West Bank

BBC News – West Bank student Berlanty Azzim’s deportation upheld

Berlanty has a Gaza ID card. She went to the West Bank under a visitors permit but instead stayed for four years to study Business Management – which she would be finishing this coming month.

At the end of October, she was stopped at an Israeli checkpoint, detained for six hours, then blindfolded, handcuffed and told she would be taken to a detention centre in the southern West Bank. When her blindfold was removed hours later she was left at an entry point to Gaza. She was also not allowed to seek legal council.

Based on the existing legal frame-work, she was illegally living in the West Bank. I can understand her removal. I however fail to understand the procedures of the Israeli military police who detained her. Blindfolds, threats, and no legal rights? I thought Israel claimed to be a state of the rule of law? But then again she is not a  ”citizen,” but a member of an occupied group without rights for almost three generations now.

Another main concern I have relates to the estimated 25,000 Palestinians living illegally in the West Bank. Although I understand security fears, it seems completely unreasonable to completely segregate the palestinians this way. Are there not excessive checkpoints already in place? Have walls not already been erected? The restriction of domestic freedom by disallowing movement of all palestinians out of fear of a minority is beyond my understanding. Issuance of these ID Cards is no less disturbing. I really hate sounding so extreme, but all I can think of is “divide and conquer.” How can one be deported from and to their own home by a government that is not their own?

What a frustrating situation.

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