Palestinian MP to Challenge Israel Deportation Order

A Palestinian lawmaker said on Thursday she would challenge a deportation order from the Israeli military authorities who have ordered her out of Ramallah.

Khalida Jarrar, a senior member of the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine, said Israeli soldiers stormed her home at dawn Wednesday with the deportation order, saying she must leave Ramallah for Jericho, also on the West Bank.

"I will not comply with this expulsion order. It is my right to stay in my place of residence," she said at a protest tent outside the Ramallah headquarters of the Palestinian parliament.

Jarrar said she had asked her lawyers to take up her case.

In the order signed by an Israeli military tribunal, Jarrar is accused of "endangering the security of the region", the leftwing lawmaker said, adding that the charges against her are not clear.

She said the soldiers who came to her home were accompanied by policemen and handed her a card on which was written specific areas of Jericho where she is allowed to go.

The deportation order says she must stay in Jericho for six months, she said.

Several Palestinian politicians and lawmakers, as well as human rights activists, have joined Jarrar at the protest tent in a sign of solidarity.

This expulsion "is something from another time and age. It is a violation of international law," said Raji Surani, director of the Palestinian Center for Human Rights.