Hostage Deal Prompts Call to Cancel Released Terrorists’ Israeli Citizenship or Residency

• The list of terrorists set to be released as part of the deal to free 33 hostages from Gaza is deeply disturbing. Many of these terrorists are individuals I “know” from my time in the Military Advocate General’s Corps or from assisting terror victims since my retirement.

• Those set for release include 73 who hold Israeli citizenship or residency; 21 are serving life sentences—meaning they are murderers. Of the 73 to be released, 45 will be released into Israel, while the remaining 28 will be deported abroad.

• Israeli law grants the Minister of the Interior the authority to revoke citizenship or residency for anyone who has violated their duty of loyalty to the state and committed acts of terrorism. But this has not been done due to legal objections in Israeli courts.

• In international law, the 1961 Convention on the Reduction of Statelessness regulates the circumstances under which a state may revoke an individual’s citizenship. According to Article 8(3), a person’s citizenship can be revoked, even if the decision leaves them stateless, if they have breached their loyalty to the state, explicitly violated a prohibition by receiving or continuing to receive financial compensation/salary from another entity, or acted in a manner that harms the vital interests of the state.

• According to experience and security assessments, the ability to revoke citizenship or residency from Israeli terrorists is a powerful deterrent. However, as long as this tool remains unused, Israel forfeits a vital deterrent capability.     

The list of terrorists set to be released as part of the deal to free 33 hostages from Gaza is deeply disturbing. Many of these terrorists are individuals I “know” from my time in the Military Advocate General’s Corps or from assisting terror victims since my retirement.

While the overall risk to the security of the state and its citizens posed by all released prisoners cannot be ignored—during the cabinet discussion prior to approving the deal, the head of the Israel Security Agency noted that 82 percent of those released in the 2011 “Shalit Deal” returned to terrorism—this alarming statistic is compounded by a longstanding failure of Israeli interior ministers spanning over 20 years.

The list of terrorists set for release includes no fewer than 73 individuals who hold Israeli citizenship or residency. Of this group, 21 are serving life sentences—meaning they are murderers. Among them, eight are expected to be released into Israel (within the 1949 armistice lines), while the remainder are to be deported, though their destinations remain unclear. Five of the eight have organizational ties to Hamas, while the others are affiliated with Fatah. All eight were arrested between 2001 and 2003, during the wave of terrorism initiated by the Palestinian Authority (PA) starting in September 2000.

Israeli law grants the Minister of the Interior the authority to revoke citizenship or residency for anyone who has violated their duty of loyalty to the state and committed acts of terrorism. This authority has existed for many years and should rightly have been applied to any citizen or resident convicted of terrorist offenses.

The current deal’s list of terrorists slated for release exposes a grave failure: these individuals still hold their Israeli citizenship or residency.

Take, for example, the terrorist Nasim Zaatari, who was among the planners and perpetrators of the bombing of the No. 2 bus in the Beit Yisrael neighborhood of Jerusalem in August 2003. That attack claimed the lives of 23 people, including one-year-old infants Shmuel Taubenfeld and Shmuel Zargari.

Alongside Zaatari, Fahmi Mashahra will also be released into Israel. Mashahra, together with his brother Ramadan (who is set to be deported), planned and carried out the attack on Bus 32A in the Gilo neighborhood in June 2002, in which 19 people were murdered.

The Legal Obstacles

Although the authority to revoke the citizenship and residency of terrorists has existed for many years, legal advisors to the government have consistently prevented interior ministers from exercising this authority. This obstacle was ostensibly overcome in 2006 when legal advisors agreed to allow the Minister of the Interior to revoke the residency of several terrorists, including three who held Israeli residency and had been appointed ministers in the Hamas government formed after the 2006 PA elections.¹

While the legal advisors to the government were persuaded and permitted the Minister of the Interior to exercise this power, the High Court of Justice did not approve the arrangement. For over a decade, the Supreme Court dragged its deliberations on the matter, and in 2017, the judges ultimately decided to annul the decision.

Amendments to the law, intended to address the objections raised by the judges, faced difficulties. Ultimately, the unnecessary insistence of the government’s legal advisors on a single point rendered the measure most ineffective. During the discussion on the law, the legal advisors insisted on adding a clause stipulating that if the terrorist in question would remain stateless after revocation, the state would be obligated to grant them permanent residency in Israel. Furthermore, if the terrorist’s permanent residency were revoked, they would be given temporary residency status. In any case, the insistence of legal advisors and High Court judges imposed on the public and citizens of Israel the continued presence of terrorists in the country, at any cost.

Revocation of Citizenship in International Law

The most significant provision of international law relevant to this issue is Article 8 of the 1961 Convention on the Reduction of Statelessness. This article regulates the circumstances under which a state may revoke an individual’s citizenship, provided certain conditions are met. While the premise of the article is that citizenship should not be revoked if it leaves a person stateless, it also clarifies that there are exceptional cases where revocation is permissible even if it results in statelessness.

This is articulated in Article 8(3):

3. Notwithstanding the provisions of paragraph 1 of this Article, a Contracting State may retain the right to deprive a person of his nationality, if at the time of signature, ratification or accession it specifies its retention of such right on one or more of the following grounds, being grounds existing in its national law at that time:

1. that, inconsistently with his duty of loyalty to the Contracting State, the person

   1. has, in disregard of an express prohibition by the Contracting State rendered or continued to render services to, or received or continued to receive emoluments² from, another State, or

   2. has conducted himself in a manner seriously prejudicial to the vital interests of the State;

2. that the person has taken an oath, or made a formal declaration, of allegiance to another State, or given definite evidence of his determination to repudiate his allegiance to the Contracting State.

According to the provisions of the article, a person’s citizenship can be revoked, even if the decision leaves them stateless, if they have breached their loyalty to the state, explicitly violated a prohibition by receiving or continuing to receive financial compensation/salary from another entity, or acted in a manner that harms the vital interests of the state.

The foundations of these provisions were already enshrined in existing law and further reinforced through an additional amendment to the law enacted in 2023, which will be elaborated upon later.

Even without the component regarding payments, the second clause of the provision, which allows the revocation of citizenship for an individual who has sworn allegiance or formally declared loyalty to another state or entity, is also relevant in this context.

A 2022 study³ by two research institutes specializing in statelessness examined the practices of 190 countries worldwide regarding the revocation of citizenship for breaching allegiance. The study highlighted three critical findings:

1. Of the 190 countries surveyed, 134 have provisions for revoking citizenship based on a breach of allegiance.
2. Among these 134 countries, 98 permit the revocation of citizenship even if it renders the individual stateless.
3. Of the 134 countries, in 101 cases, the decision to revoke citizenship is made by the head of state, government, or a designated minister. In only a small minority—14 countries—the decision is made by the judiciary.

The Case of Shamima Begum

Shamima Begum, born in England to parents who emigrated from Bangladesh, left her home at age 15 to join ISIS in Syria. Shortly after arriving, she married an ISIS operative. When UK authorities discovered her actions, the Home Secretary decided to revoke her citizenship, despite there being no evidence or even allegations that she actively participated in ISIS’s terrorist activities. At the time, Begum did not hold any other citizenship and was rendered stateless. Although she appealed the decision through multiple legal proceedings in various courts, the revocation was upheld.

Murderers and Profiteers

It is well-known that the PA pays financial rewards to Palestinian terrorists arrested by Israel. What is less commonly known is that the PA provides special bonuses specifically to terrorists holding Israeli citizenship or residency. This additional payment is intended to encourage and incentivize these individuals to actively participate in the Palestinian struggle against the existence of the Jewish state. Unlike terrorists residing in Judea, Samaria or the Gaza Strip, Israeli terrorists benefit significantly from their status, including freedom of movement throughout the country.

Both Zaatari and Mashahra exploited their Israeli residency and the blue ID cards they held to carry out deadly attacks.

Under the PA’s Prisoners and Released Prisoners Law of 2004, and its accompanying regulations, Zaatari and Mashahra were paid over 1 million NIS each as rewards for murdering Jews.

The 2023 Amendment to Israeli Law

To address the PA’s rewards to Israeli terrorists, an amendment spearheaded by the author of this article to the Citizenship Law and the Entry into Israel Law was passed in February 2023.⁴ This amendment introduced an expedited process for revoking citizenship or residency if a terrorist served a prison sentence and received payments from the PA. The amendment also clarified an obvious principle: a terrorist who formally holds Israeli status but, in practice, identifies as “Palestinian,” commits acts of terrorism as a “Palestinian,” and is rewarded by the PA as a “Palestinian” will be regarded as a Palestinian.

Despite Defense Minister Yoav Gallant possessing evidence of PA payments to Israeli terrorists – evidence he used to seize⁵ the funds based on powers granted to him in Israel’s Counterterrorism Law – the Ministry of Defense and the Ministry of Interior engaged in an unnecessary dispute over sharing the evidence. The Interior Minister, for his part, was reluctant to exercise his authority and failed to press the issue.

While this bureaucratic wrangling continued, Israeli terrorists like Zaatari, Mashahra, and dozens more reveled in their impunity.

The Path Forward

Although there is no use lamenting past failures to revoke the citizenship or residency of Israeli terrorists, the current hostage exchange deal must serve as a turning point.

As noted earlier⁶, the deal includes the release of 73 Israeli terrorists from prison. Of these, 45 will be released into Israel, while the remaining 28 will be deported abroad – three temporarily and 25 permanently.

While Israel has relinquished the option to return the terrorists to prison if they violate their release conditions, their legal and moral dictate necessitates the immediate revocation of their citizenship or residency.

For the 45 terrorists released into Israel, while their deportation is off the table, there is no obligation to preserve their Israeli status. The Interior Minister must promptly initiate procedures to revoke their citizenship or residency. At most, the government can adopt the dubious advice of legal advisors, granting them temporary residency while stripping them of all accompanying rights.

If legal advisors or the High Court of Justice side with the terrorists and obstruct the implementation of this policy, the public and the families of the hostages will know precisely where to direct their outrage.

Deterrence as a Priority

The ability to revoke citizenship or residency from Israeli terrorists is a powerful deterrent. According to experience and security assessments presented during discussions on the 2023 amendment, this sanction is a significant source of fear for terrorists and their families. However, as long as this tool remains unused, Israel forfeits a vital deterrent capability.

The massacre of October 7, 2023, and the abduction of over 250 individuals represent a turning point. If the interior minister, legal advisors, and the judiciary continue their pre-massacre behavior, it will confirm their continued adherence to the same flawed paradigms that enabled the attack. Just as Israel’s soldiers displayed exceptional courage on the battlefield, it is time to respond decisively in this realm as well.

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