The Supreme Court has given the Defense Ministry 45 days to explain why its expulsion orders against three West Bank political figures should not be rescinded and the deportees permitted to return to their homes in the Hebron region. The high court acted, today on appeals by the families of Mayor Fahed Kawasme of Hebron, Mayor Mohammed Milhim of Halhoul and Kodi (religious judge) Rajeb Buyud Tamimi of Hebron.
They were deported on May 3, following the killing of six yeshiva students in a terrorist ambush in Hebron the previous night. The three men were held morally responsible for the act inasmuch as political statements by them in the preceding weeks allegedly created an atmosphere conducive to violence.
In issuing its show cause order to the Defense Ministry and the Military Governor of the West Bank, the Supreme Court took a dim view of the fact that the deportees were expelled without being given their legal right to appeal before a special committee which advises the Military Government in such matters. State Attorney Gavriel Bach admitted in court today that the deportations were effected in a manner contrary to accepted custom and obliquely admonished the government. The State should honor the law, he said.
However, Bach argued that the deportations came in the immediate aftermath of “the brutal and traumatic event” in Hebron. Justice Haim Cohen retorted that because the event was “brutal and traumatic” the deportations should not have been carried out in the some way.
EARLIER HIGH COURT RULING RECALLED
Cohen recalled that the Supreme Court had ruled 32 years ago that the emergency regulations of the former Mandate Government in Palestine which allowed summary deportations were illegal unless the subject was given prior opportunity to appeal. The justice expressed “surprise” that this right was not accorded the three Arab leaders.
The latter are presently in New York where they are seeking to address the United Nations Security Council. The Council has ordered Israel to readmit them but when the three attempted to reenter the West Bank a week ago they were turned back at the Jordan River bridge.
TWO FAMILIES APPEAL THEIR REMOVAL
Meanwhile, the Supreme Court has under consideration an appeal on behalf of two Arab families–the Shumalis of Beit Sahour near Bethlehem and the Kaabas of Balata village near Nablus–who were removed from their homes by Israeli authorities last week and placed in a deserted former refugee camp near Jericho in the Dead Sea valley.
The Military Government acted after members of both families allegedly hurried rocks and a gasoline bomb at Israeli military vehicles. The appeal, submitted to the high court yesterday by the Shumali family, accused the authorities of collective punishment in violation of the Fourth Geneva Convention.
The case is the first in which families and their belongings were deported internally, i.e., within the occupied territories. Yaacub Shumali, 60, his wife and their two daughters, one a teacher and the other a student at Bir Zeit University, are living in a clay but in the Ein A-Sultan camp which housed 50,000 refugees before the Six-Day War. Their son, Tariq, 17, is accused of throwing a stone at the car of the Beth###em Military Governor. The 12 members of the Ko### family were sent to the some site after a family member, Ahmed Mohammed, 27, allegedly threw a gasoline bomb.
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