(AFP) - Human Rights Watch said Tuesday Israel had stripped nearly 15,000 Jerusalem Arabs of their resident status since 1967 and warned that it could be a "war crime." The majority of these revocations were due to spending periods of time out of the city, with Israel arguing their "center of life" was not in Jerusalem. A report by the watchdog says "Residency revocations often effectively force Palestinians from east Jerusalem, who are protected by virtue of Israel's occupation under the Fourth Geneva Convention, to leave the territory they live in," adding, "Deportation or forced transfers of any part of the population of an occupied territory could amount to war crimes."
The Interior Ministry could not immediately be reached for comment.