Israel postpones deportation of Anadolu Agency reporter

By Abdel Rauf Arnaut</p> <p>JERUSALEM (AA) – An Israeli court Monday postponed the scheduled deportation of Mustafa Kharouf, an Anadolu Agency photojournalist, from the occupied West Bank to neighboring Jordan.</p> <p>An Algeria-born Palestinian, Kharouf, 32, was detained by Israeli police in January. He had been slated for deportation on May 5 (Sunday) in line with an Israeli court ruling.</p> <p>Kharouf was reportedly told on Sunday that he would be deported to Jordan the following day.</p> <p>But his lawyer, Adi Lustigman, from Israel’s HaMoked Center for the Defense of the Individual, a rights advocacy group, filed a request with Israel’s Supreme Court to postpone the scheduled deportation.</p> <p>On the same day, the court ruled to freeze the deportation order until it had a chance to hear the lawyer’s appeal.</p> <p>Because he was born in Algeria, Israeli prosecutors are calling for Kharouf’s expulsion from the occupied West Bank to neighboring Jordan — despite the fact that his family hails from Jerusalem.</p> <p>For the last 20 years, the Israeli authorities have consistently refused to grant Kharouf a long-term residency permit, forcing him to obtain fresh tourist visas each year.</p> <p>In earlier remarks to Anadolu Agency, Lustigman said that his client had lived in the West Bank since he was 12 years old.</p> <p>He has lived in East Jerusalem for over 20 years, where he has a Palestinian mother and a Palestinian wife, and is not a citizen of any other country, the lawyer said.</p> <p>While Kharouf holds a Jordanian passport that allows him to travel to neighboring Arab states, this does not give him citizenship or residency rights in Jordan.</p> <p>Since August of last year, Kharouf has worked for Anadolu Agency as a photographer.</p> <p>Israel occupied the West Bank, which international law still regards as “occupied territory”, in 1967.

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