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Israel Approves West Bank Residency for 4,000 Undocumented Palestinians

Israeli soldiers check a Palestinian woman as she waits to cross the Qalandiya checkpoint between the West Bank city of Ramallah and Jerusalem, to attend the second Friday prayers in the al-Aqsa mosque during the Muslim holy month of Ramadan on April 23, 2021. (AP)
Israeli soldiers check a Palestinian woman as she waits to cross the Qalandiya checkpoint between the West Bank city of Ramallah and Jerusalem, to attend the second Friday prayers in the al-Aqsa mosque during the Muslim holy month of Ramadan on April 23, 2021. (AP)
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Israel Approves West Bank Residency for 4,000 Undocumented Palestinians

Israeli soldiers check a Palestinian woman as she waits to cross the Qalandiya checkpoint between the West Bank city of Ramallah and Jerusalem, to attend the second Friday prayers in the al-Aqsa mosque during the Muslim holy month of Ramadan on April 23, 2021. (AP)
Israeli soldiers check a Palestinian woman as she waits to cross the Qalandiya checkpoint between the West Bank city of Ramallah and Jerusalem, to attend the second Friday prayers in the al-Aqsa mosque during the Muslim holy month of Ramadan on April 23, 2021. (AP)

Israel announced on Tuesday that it approved registration as West Bank residents for some 4,000 Palestinians who have been living for years in the Israeli-occupied territory without official status.

The decision affects 2,800 former inhabitants of the Gaza Strip who left the enclave after the Hamas movement seized it in internal Palestinian fighting in 2007, Israel's COGAT liaison office to the Palestinians said.

Some 1,200 other Palestinians, among them undocumented spouses and children of West Bank residents, will also receive official standing.

Inclusion in the Palestinian Population Registry, which Israel controls, will enable the group to receive identification cards. The documentation will enable passage through Israeli military checkpoints in the West Bank, an area captured in a 1967 war.

Israel describes the roadblocks, condemned by Palestinians and rights groups as restricting freedom of movement, as a security necessity.

On Twitter, Israeli Defense Minister Benny Gantz said he approved the 4,000 residency registrations as a humanitarian gesture and "as part of my policy to strengthen the economy and improve the lives of Palestinians" in the West Bank.

Hussein Al Sheikh, a senior official of the Palestinian Authority (PA) that exercises limited self-rule in the West Bank, said on Twitter that the 4,000 "obtained their right to citizenship" and would receive identification cards.

Under interim Israeli-Palestinian peace deals that established the PA, Israel committed to approve the residency in the West Bank and Gaza of some 4,000 new spouses of local residents each year under a family reunification program.

Israel suspended the approvals when the Palestinian uprising erupted in 2000. It granted some 32,000 reunification permits in 2008 and 2009, but largely froze the process, save for a smattering of humanitarian cases, since then.

Gantz gave the new approvals some seven weeks after holding talks with Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas in the West Bank city of Ramallah. It was the highest-level meeting between Abbas and an Israeli minister to be made public since Israel's new government was formed in June.

Israeli Prime Minister Naftali Bennett, a far-right politician, opposes the creation of a Palestinian state, a divisive issue his cross-partisan government is unlikely to pursue. Israeli-Palestinian peace talks collapsed in 2014.

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Israeli Military Says Commandos Raided Missile Plant in Syria in September

People inspect a damaged area in the aftermath of what Syrian state media reported was an Israeli strike in Masyaf, Hama province, Syria September 9, 2024. (Reuters)
People inspect a damaged area in the aftermath of what Syrian state media reported was an Israeli strike in Masyaf, Hama province, Syria September 9, 2024. (Reuters)
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Israeli Military Says Commandos Raided Missile Plant in Syria in September

People inspect a damaged area in the aftermath of what Syrian state media reported was an Israeli strike in Masyaf, Hama province, Syria September 9, 2024. (Reuters)
People inspect a damaged area in the aftermath of what Syrian state media reported was an Israeli strike in Masyaf, Hama province, Syria September 9, 2024. (Reuters)

Israel's military said on Thursday its special forces had raided an underground missile production site in Syria in September that it said was primed to produce hundreds of precision missiles for use against Israel by the Iranian-backed Hezbollah.

The complex near Masyaf, close to the Mediterranean coast, was "the flagship of Iranian manufacturing efforts in our region", Lieutenant Colonel Nadav Shoshani told a briefing with reporters.

"This facility was designed to manufacture hundreds of strategic missiles per year from start to finish, for Hezbollah to use in their aerial attacks on Israel."

He said the plant, dug into a mountainside, had been under observation by Israel since construction began in 2017 and was on the point of being able to manufacture precision-guided missiles, some with a range of up to 300 km (190 miles).

"This ability was becoming active, so we're talking about an immediate threat," he said.

Details of the Sept. 8 raid have been reported in Israeli media but Shoshani said this was the first confirmation by the military, which rarely comments on special forces operations.

At the time, Syrian state media said at least 16 people were killed in Israeli airstrikes in the west of the country.

Shoshani said the nighttime raid was "one of the more complex operations the IDF has done in recent years". Accompanied by airstrikes, it involved dozens of aircraft and around 100 helicopter-borne troops, he said.

"At the end of the raid, the troops dismantled the facility, including the machines and the manufacturing equipment, themselves," he said.

The military released footage showing Israeli troops boarding and dismounting from helicopters and moving through what appears to be a concrete-lined tunnel and industrial site, where they examine documents.

Other footage showed senior commanders at a control center, apparently as the operation proceeds.

Israeli officials have accused the former Syrian government of president Bahar al-Assad of helping the Lebanese-based Hezbollah movement receive arms from Iran and say they are determined to stop the flow of weapons into Lebanon.

As Assad's government crumbled towards the end of last year, Israel launched a series of strikes against Syrian military infrastructure and weapons manufacturing sites to prevent them falling into the hands of enemies.