BADIL Resource Center for Palestinian Residency and Refugee

From the Nakba to the Present Day – Ongoing Displacement
1.6 Israel’s Occupation Regime after 1967 and Ongoing Forced
Displacement in the OPT
Throughout the post-1967 period, Palestinians in the occupied West Bank and Gaza Strip experienced continued
forced displacement and dispossession through a number of measures, including deportation, revocation of
residency rights, home demolition, confiscation and annexation of land, and the Wall and its associated regime.
It is estimated that some 400,000 Palestinians have been displaced from the OPT since 1967. 93
Israel established a military government in the occupied West Bank (excluding eastern Jerusalem) and the Gaza
Strip in 1967, and illegally annexed occupied eastern Jerusalem through a series of administrative orders and laws
passed between 1967 and 1980. 94 In the occupied West Bank and Gaza Strip, the military government has issued
over 1,200 military orders since 1967, introducing extensive administrative and legal changes.
Under the Oslo agreements in the mid-1990s, the Israeli military government transferred some responsibilities to the
Palestinian Authorities, in particular in areas A (areas under the civil and internal security control of the Palestinian
Authority). Areas A represent 2% of the total territory of the occupied West Bank. The Palestinian Authority also
controlled civil affairs in Areas B (26% of the West Bank). However, Israel retained security control in Areas B
and C, amounting to 98% of the occupied territory, and continues to maintain effective military control over the
entire occupied Palestinian territory, especially since the re-invasion of Palestinian towns and villages in 2002.
Israel decolonized the occupied Gaza Strip and redeployed its army in September 2005. 95 Israel, however, retains
effective control over the air space, territorial water and land borders, and has the ability to exercise effective military
control anywhere in the territory of the Gaza Strip.
1.6.1 Deportation
Israel has deported more than 6,500 Palestinians from the OPT since 1967. Some 4,000 Palestinians were deported
to Egypt in 1967. 96 Deportees included Palestinians who had fought against the Israeli occupation and had served
time in Israeli prisons, political activists, school principals and supervisors who protested against censorship of
textbooks, teachers and students who initiated school boycotts, and attorneys who organized lawyers’ strikes.
Since 2002, Israel has also forcibly transferred a limited number of Palestinians from the occupied West Bank to
the Gaza Strip. 97
1.6.2 Revocation of residency rights
Between 1967 and 1999, Israel has revoked the residency status of more than 100,000 Palestinians in the OPT. 98 Only
those Palestinians (and their offspring) registered in Israel’s September 1967 census are considered legal residents of
the OPT. 99 Between 1967 and 1995, the status of resident alien did not provide a guarantee of residence. Under the
Oslo agreements in the mid-1990s, Palestinian inhabitants of the OPT were granted protected residence status, but
inhabitants of occupied eastern Jerusalem were excluded from these agreements. Israel retained the authority to make
the final determination on requests for permanent residency through family reunification by those Palestinians not
registered in the 1967 Israeli census. More than 56,000 Palestinians were forced to change residence for reasons of security,
access to employment, and education and health during the first year (2000) of the second intifada. 100 Between
2002 and 2006, 561 families (approximately 2,800 persons) lost their residency rights in eastern Jerusalem. 101
1.6.3 Home demolition
More than 12,000 Palestinian homes in the occupied West Bank (including eastern Jerusalem) and the Gaza Strip have
been demolished on administrative pretexts such as a lack of building permits, and as a result of military operations and
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