RAMALLAH, April 21 (JMCC) - In June of last year, Israel ordered that four
Hamas legislators be stripped of their right to live in Jerusalem. After one of them was arrested, the other three sought refuge in headquarters of the International Committee of the Red Cross in the city.
In
this interview published at the Electronic Intifada, Jillian Kestler-D'amours speaks with Muhammed Totah about their lives since.
JKD: What will happen if you and your colleagues are deported from Jerusalem?
MT: It means deporting thousands of people from East Jerusalem for disloyalty. This word does not have any dimensions or any measures, so they can claim that anybody living in East Jerusalem … is disloyal to the Israeli occupation and then deport him. We know that it is one of the main objectives of the Israeli plan to empty East Jerusalem of the Palestinian people.
East Jerusalem is an occupied territory and it is illegal to deport people who are under occupation. It is now the tenth month that we haven’t left these headquarters. If we leave it, then we will be immediately arrested.
We think the only way to cancel the decision of the deportation is with the intervention of the international community. We are constantly asking the international community to uphold its responsibility regarding us, since we are occupied and it is their responsibility to take care of the people who are under occupation.