Israel is preparing ‘$150bn compensation bill’ over Arab countries

Israel is preparing ‘$150bn compensation bill’ over Jews who left Arab countries

According to reports, Israel is preparing to present a giant bill to 10 Arab countries over the expulsion of Jews during the 1948 Nakba.

MENA

2 min read

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16 December, 2019

Israel continues to expand its illegal settlements [Getty]

Israel is set to claim $150 billion (£112.57 billion) in compensation money for property left behind when Jews left Arab countries for occupied Palestine, it has been reported.

The Israeli government has been assessing the value of assets left behind in Arab nations, including Syria, Yemen, Egypt and Libya as well as Maghreb countries Algeria, Tunisia and Morocco, and Iran.

The evaluation process is thought to have started in 2002, according to Israel Hayom, who obtained the government assessment.

Justice for Jews from Arab Countries, an international organisation, claims that some 856,000 Jews from 10 Arab countries either fled or were expelled during the 1948 Nakba.

This was the same time approximately 800,000 – or over 70 per cent – of Palestinians from a 1.9 million population were expelled, and 530 of their villages and cities destroyed. Some 15,000 Palestinians killed in one year.

According to the publication, the project had remained stagnant until 2017, when Social Equality Minister Gila Gamliel, along with the National Security Council, took over.

The methods used to collate the report remain “classified.”

Gamliel is set to present the assessment to prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu some time in the next few weeks.

It is unclear where the information for the report has come from, or what methods were used in the gathering.

This comes as Israel continues to expand its illegal settlement, the latest of which is set to be built in Hebron, an area already rife with conflict.

According to Bloomberg, “almost a tenth of Israel’s Jews live in east Jerusalem and the West Bank, outside their country’s recognised borders.”

Despite the fact that the International Court of Justice concluded in a 2004 opinion that the Jewish settlements built in occupied Palestinian territory are illegal, such settlements continue to expand.

According to numerous UN resolutions, Israeli settlements in the West Bank, East Jerusalem and the Golan Heights are a violation of international law, including three UN Security Council resolutions in 1979, 1980 and 2016.

It is estimated that four million Palestinians have become refugees in the decades since the Nakba.

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