On Sunday 20 June 2010, the Israeli High Court upheld a decision to forcibly transfer from Jerusalem three members of the Palestinian Legislative Council (PLC): Ahmed Mohammed Atwan, Mohammed Totah, and Mohammed Abu Tair; and the former Minister of Jerusalem Affairs, Khalid Abu Arafa.
The Israeli authorities had confiscated their Jerusalem ID cards and drivers licenses; which practically means transferring them from the city.
Palestinian residents of Jerusalem have a permanent resident status in the city, which is subject to Israeli law that largely allows for the transfer of them.
Al Mezan Centre for Human Rights condemns this conduct, which constitutes a violation of international law, and calls on international community to bring an end to the transfer of Jerusalemite Palestinians from their city.
  In May and early June 2010, the Israeli authorities summoned the three PLC members and former Minister to the investigation office at the Al Maskobia center.
When they went there, their ID cards and driving licenses were taken from them and they were given formal written letters to leave Jerusalem following a decision issued four years ago by the former Israeli Minister of Interior regarding their expulsion from the city.
This decision was issued after the three PLC members and the Minister won the, then fresh, Palestinian elections in 2006.
  The lawyer for the three PLC members and former Minister, who was a minister in the tenth Palestinian government, submitted an appeal to the Israeli High Court to issue an injunction to freeze their expulsion.
The Court replied that they should obey the order from the Israeli Ministry of Interior and leave Jerusalem until it settled the case in its session in September 2010.
  In 2006, the then Israeli Minister of Interior justified the withdrawal of their residency in Jerusalem because the four had refused to resign from the Palestinian Legislative Council after being elected in 2006.
  Al Mezan Centre for Human Rights expresses its strong condemnation of Israel’s decision to transfer the four Palestinians from Jerusalem.
This decision is an extension of the increased systematic transfer of Palestinians from Jerusalem by Israel in violation of international law.
This latest act comes in the context of an organized policy that aims to push Palestinian residents of Jerusalem out of the city through a complex set of laws, procedures and orders including forcible transfers, house demolitions, and the confiscation of Palestinian lands and properties in the city.
In order to force Palestinians to leave Jerusalem, the Israeli authorities are also exerting more pressure on people in Jerusalem by imposing arbitrary taxes on them without providing adequate services in return, or facilitating Palestinians building in the city.
  Al Mezan calls on the international community to intervene and bring this policy to an end.
The international community must end its decades-long policy of silence as these violations and discriminatory practices are implemented slowly and continuously.
It must promptly intervene to ensure that the Israeli authorities uphold international law in its treatment of Palestinians in Jerusalem.
Forcible transfers and deportation by an occupying power may amount to war crimes and/or crimes against humanity under the Rome Statute, especially when they follow an intentional pattern in the form of a policy.
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