Despite Israeli intelligence data indicating that there are no security risks among the thousands of Palestinian families seeking family reunification, the parliament extended emergency regulations barring such reunions.
This deprived some 22,000 Palestinian families, torn apart by Israeli laws, from reunification.
The ban was not welcomed, even in Israel itself, with many criticizing the regulations as inhumane and making old colonial emergency systems an alternative to humanitarian laws.
The head of the Knesset Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee has cited the so-called nation-state law to call on the government to bar Palestinians from moving to Israel to be united with relatives.
The attempt Tuesday by committee chief Zvi Hauser is the first of its kind to rely on the 2018 Basic Law on Israel as the Nation-State of the Jewish People. Up to now, family unifications have been declined only based on security considerations.
The law barring reunifications of families, which also applies to residents of Iran, Lebanon, Syria and Iraq, was passed in 2003 and has been renewed every year by the Knesset.
According to Israeli intelligence data, there are 22,000 Palestinian families affected by the measure because one of the spouses does not carry an Israeli ID card, and is part of the Palestinian Authority or an Arab country.
These families were created by a legal marriage between relatives or acquaintances, and due to security incidents in the West Bank and Gaza Strip, the Israeli authorities refused to extend the residency of one of the spouses. In some cases, the children are growing up without knowing their father or mother because of the family reunification ban.
The argument invoked by the Israeli authorities is "to maintain security", arguing that these families are "partial and not loyal to Israel."
