JNS
In addition to hundreds who held an Israeli passport before the massacre, at least dozens of their descendants have since been allowed to enter.
Hundreds of Arab Israelis who lived in Gaza until the war sparked by the terrorist attacks in southern Israel on Oct. 7, 2023, have since entered the Jewish state while passing on citizenship to their children, including some adults who were born and raised in the coastal enclave, Israel's Mida news magazine revealed this week.
In addition to Palestinians from Gaza who held an Israeli passport before the Oct. 7 massacre and subsequent military operation by the Israel Defense Forces against the Hamas terror group, at least dozens of their descendants have since been allowed to enter the Jewish state on the basis of genetic testing, according to Mida.
The report noted their births had not been registered in the Israeli population registry, only with the Hamas-run Interior Ministry.
By Israeli law, citizens who live abroad are obligated to report the birth of new children or any change in their marital status within a month.
"This is something that these Gazan Israeli women failed to do for obvious reasons: They chose to live in Gaza under the rule of the P.A. or Hamas, and until the outbreak of the war, they saw no value in their connection with Israel and perhaps even the opposite: They saw it as a satanic enemy," Mida editor-in-chief Akiva Bigman wrote on Sunday.
The push to bring Gazans into Israel started within a week of the Oct. 7 massacre with the help of two far-left Israeli groups that receive funding from European governments: HaMoked–Center for the Defense of the Individual and Gisha–Legal Center for Freedom of Movement, he said.
Following multiple court cases filed with Israel's High Court of Justice, the government in Jerusalem allowed the first group to enter on Nov. 16.
DNA testing is now conducted "on a regular basis" at the Kerem Shalom Crossing to determine the relationship of children to their Arab-Israeli mothers and facilitate their entry into the country, the report noted.
'Freedom of movement'
In a response to the Mida exposé on Tuesday, Israeli Interior Minister Moshe Arbel confirmed that the Population and Immigration Authority assisted "citizens who on the eve of the war were located in the Gaza Strip and returned to the State of Israel after a security assessment."
He said, "It is our duty to allow citizens of the State of Israel, Jews and non-Jews, freedom of movement. We do it; we do not apologize!"
However, according to Kan News, Arbel has asked his legal advisers to prepare a change to existing laws that would deny automatic citizenship to "children of Israeli citizens born in enemy countries or in Gaza."
Last year, it was revealed that nearly 30 Palestinian terrorists were receiving financial benefits from Israel's National Insurance Institute.
Jerusalem transfers 7.3 million shekels ($2.1 million) to 265 people in the Gaza Strip annually, mainly in disability payments for Palestinians who worked in the Jewish state and paid National Insurance premiums.
According to the report, which was cross-checked against databases of the Israel Defense Forces’ Military Intelligence Directorate and other sources, at least 30 known Hamas and Islamic Jihad terrorists in Gaza, and in Judea and Samaria, are among those receiving benefits.
Some 7,000 Palestinian terrorists from Hamas, Palestinian Islamic Jihad and Fatah, in addition to unaffiliated “civilians,” infiltrated the Jewish state on Oct. 7. They massacred some 1,200 people and kidnapped 251 more into the enclave, holding them captive in tunnels and homes.
