Adalah petitions against law used to revoke the citizenship of a Palestinian charged as a minor

Yesterday, 30 April 2026, Adalah – The Legal Center for Arab Minority Rights in Israel petitioned the Israeli Supreme Court on behalf of Mohammad Ahmad al-Halaseh, a Palestinian citizen of Israel facing state efforts to strip him of his citizenship. The petition demands that the Court strike down a 2023 amendment to the Citizenship Law, which the state is relying on for the first time in proceedings against al-Halaseh and one other Palestinian citizen. 

The filing follows a hearing on 23 April 2026 at the Jerusalem District Court, where the Court clarified that the case raises fundamental constitutional questions. The parties thus reached an agreement that the legal issues should be decided by the Supreme Court, given that a petition challenging the law was already pending before it.

In February 2026, Prime Minister Netanyahu filed the first motions under a 2023 amendment to the Citizenship Law to revoke the citizenship of al-Halaseh and a second Palestinian citizen, with a view to deporting both men to the West Bank or to Gaza. Al-Halaseh is currently serving an 18-year prison sentence and is not expected to be released until 2034. He was 17 years old at the time of the offenses for which he was convicted - attempted murder, weapons possession, and obstruction of justice.

Background: the 2023 amendment allowing for citizenship revocation 

The 2023 amendment to the Citizenship Law introduces a new pathway to revoke the citizenship of Palestinian citizens of Israel and deport them to the West Bank or Gaza. It targets individuals convicted of offenses classified as acts of terror under Israel’s 2016 Counter-Terrorism Law, a definition that is ambiguous and overly broad, and who received  payments from the Palestinian Authority according to the Interior Minister. Upon revocation, the authorities are to expel the individual to the West Bank or Gaza, without any safeguards against statelessness.

The law was enacted specifically to circumvent a 2022 Supreme Court ruling that upheld citizenship revocation only under strict safeguards, including the requirement that anyone left stateless must be granted permanent residency status. The 2023 amendment entirely removes that requirement by creating a legal fiction: it presumes that any citizen who received Palestinian Authority funds, including money deposited into prison canteen accounts, holds permanent status in what the law defines as “Palestinian Authority-controlled territory,” and can therefore be deported without the state formally rendering them stateless.

See Adalah’s Q&A about the 2023 law

Adalah’s main legal arguments

In the petition, Adalah argued that the 2023 amendment is unconstitutional and that the motion should therefore be rejected, based on four main arguments:
 

• Violation of the right to citizenship. Citizenship is a fundamental right and a prerequisite of all other civil liberties. Its arbitrary revocation violates Israeli constitutional law and international law, including Article 15 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and the 1961 Convention on the Reduction of Statelessness.
• Prohibition on statelessness and forced deportation. The law authorizes the deportation of a person who has lived their entire life in Israel and has no status, ties, or citizenship in any other country or territory. This violates the prohibition on creating statelessness and the prohibition on expelling a person from their country of birth under international law.
• Discriminatory application. Criteria in the law, particularly the reference to payments from the Palestinian Authority, apply almost exclusively to Arab citizens and therefore constitute unlawful discrimination.
• Undermining judicial review and due process. The law allows courts to reject a revocation motion only in exceptional circumstances, which the court must justify. Revocation therefore becomes the default, which curtails judicial discretion and concentrates power in a political actor.

Adalah argued that, even if the court upholds the law’s constitutionality, it should still reject the motion to revoke al-Halaseh’s citizenship. Al-Halaseh committed the offense as a minor at the age of 17 and is already serving a lengthy sentence of 18 years. Revocation would impose an additional penalty not included at sentencing, in violation of core principles of criminal law, and the retroactive application of the law to conduct that predates its enactment. 

Case citation: HCJ 76360-04-26 Mohammad Ahmad al-Halaseh v. the Prime Minister et al.

The petition was submitted by Adalah Attorneys Hadeel Abu Salih, Muna Haddad and General Director Dr. Hassan Jabareen.