On Tuesday, Israel said it would grant legal residency to 4,000 Palestinians living in the West Bank and Gaza following a ten-year freeze on residency requests. The decision will allow many Palestinians who have been living without legal status in the Palestinian territories to get official IDs
The Office of Coordination of Government Activities in the Territories (COGAT), the Israeli defence body in charge of civilian affairs in Palestinian territories, announced that Israel would provide IDs to 2,800 citizens who fled Gaza for the West Bank in 2007 after Hamas forcibly seized power in the enclave.
Another 1,200 Palestinians, mostly undocumented spouses and children of West Bank residents, will be given legal residency in the West Bank. Furthermore, the move will allow the recipients to register their names in the Palestinian Population Registry and will allow them passage through Israeli military checkpoints in the West bank.
The move is part of a series of gestures announced by Israel during a high-level meeting between Israeli Defence Minister Benny Gantz and Palestinian Authority (PA) President Mahmoud Abbas in Ramallah in August. Gantz tweeted on Tuesday that the move was meant “to strengthen the economy and improve the lives of Palestinians in Judea and Samaria [West Bank].”
A senior PA official said the move will be “a first batch on the road to resolving this issue entirely, within the framework of an agreed-upon timeline.”
Under the Oslo II Accord of 1995 that established the PA, Israel vowed to provide legal status to 4,000 Palestinians every year. However, following the Second Intifada or Palestinian uprising in 2000, Israel suspended the approvals. Since then, measures aimed at restarting the approval process have failed until now.
Israel hopes that these measures will improve ties with the PA, whose popularity in the West Bank has been declining. In August, Israel announced a $155 million loan to the PA, approved the construction of 1,000 Palestinian homes in Area C of the West Bank, announced its intention to issue 16,000 work permits for Palestinians working in the Israeli construction industry, and promised to introduce 4G technology to the West Bank.
Israel has also taken steps to ease its 14-year blockade of Gaza, including the extension of Gaza’s fishing zone to 15 nautical miles and the opening of the Kerem Shalom crossing to allow the import of construction material. In addition, it has approved a Qatari funding scheme to provide direct cash to around 100,000 Gazans.
Despite these steps, however, the Israeli cabinet remains divided over how to approach the Palestinian issue. While lawmakers like Gantz have expressed their support for a two-state solution and for taking measures to ease Palestinian hardship, Israeli Prime Minister Naftali Bennett has repeatedly said he is opposed to the creation of a Palestinian state. Bennett has shown little interest in reviving the peace process and failed to mention the Palestinian issue during his speech at the 76th session of the United Nations General Assembly in New York in September.
Moreover, Israel has done little to reduce the frequent incursions of its security forces into the Islamic holy sites in Jerusalem. These raids have led to violent clashes between Israeli security forces and Palestinians. In fact, on Tuesday, Israeli forces violently clashed with Palestinians in the Damascus Gate and the surrounding region in East Jerusalem for the second day in a row. 17 Palestinians were wounded and 22 were arrested during the raids.
The clashes were the worst in East Jerusalem since May, when violence in the area triggered a brutal 11-day war between Israel and Hamas.