Over 61,000 illegals take recourse to amnesty

February 7, 2013

amnesty
Abu Dhabi, Feb 7: Around 62,000 illegal immigrants have sought permits to leave the country under the two-month amnesty period that ended on February 4. Over half of them have already departed for their home countries.

Ruling out the extension of the general pardon, Major-General Nasser Al Awadhi Al Minhali, Acting Undersecretary of Naturalisation, Residency and Ports Affairs at the Ministry of Interior, told reporters that 61,826 illegal immigrants sought amnesty during the two-month grace period and 38,505 have already left the country.

“The campaign to end the phenomenon of illegal immigrants has been successful thanks to the support extended by lawful residents, NGOs, government departments, embassies and, above all, the print and electronic media,” Al Minhali said.

During two days of inspections and raids just before the deadline, immigration authorities were able to apprehend more than 1,000 illegal immigrants who were avoiding the amnesty and continuing their stay in the country illegally, he added.

“Intensified inspection and raids were carried out at various establishments and public places throughout the country from February 2 that resulted in the detection and apprehension of more than 1,000 illegal immigrants avoiding the amnesty or waiting for the last day to surrender with the anticipation that the grace period will be extended. Let me make it clear there will be no extension or any leniency in the policy. Those found still living in the country without legal status will be treated as criminal and have to face legal action,” Al Minhali warned.

Permits to leave the country by amnesty service centres across the country were issued from December 4 to February 2.

He added that those who have got amnesty permits have 10 to 15 days to leave the country.

Al Minhali said that the campaign to hunt down all immigration violators with intensified inspections and raids will continue until every illegal leaves the country.

He also advised legal residents and UAE citizens to cooperate with the ministry in spotting and reporting those immigrants living in the country illegally.

“Illegal immigrants are a threat to community and national security of any country, and therefore it is our duty to fight against this by cooperating with the authorities concerned. Those who harbour or protect illegal immigrants in any form will also be treated as criminals and shall face legal actions that include financial fines and imprisonment,” he warned.

Minhali further thanked the diplomatic missions in the country, particularly from Asian countries, for their full support to the campaign.

“The support from these embassies was tremendous and extremely helpful in tracking down the maximum number of illegal immigrants. We are really thankful to some of the ambassadors who personally visited the amnesty service centres to coordinate with their people who were there to benefit from the amnesty and leave the country without any punishment,” he added.

He also thanked the embassies for expediting the issuance of outpasses and working with national airlines and banks to extend full support to those seeking amnesty during this grace period.

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News Network
November 7,2024

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The Israeli regime has killed at least 40 people during new airstrikes against eastern Lebanese areas, besides targeting the country’s capital Beirut with fresh acts of aggression.

Lebanon’s health ministry announced the fatalities on Wednesday, saying 53 other people had also been wounded during the aerial attacks that targeted the country’s Bekaa Valley, including the city of Baalbek.

In early Thursday, the regime was also reported to have attacked Beirut’s southern suburbs, including a site adjacent to Rafiq Hariri International Airport.

The attacks came after the regime issued short-notice evacuation orders apparently directed at the residents of the areas, claiming that the areas contained facilities belonging to Lebanon’s Hezbollah resistance movement.

Tel Aviv has been using similar claims on countless occasions since last October, when it markedly intensified its deadly acts of aggression against Lebanon, in order to try to justify the escalation. Hezbollah has, however, invariably refuted the claims.

Also on Wednesday, the United Nations warned in its most recent flash report on the humanitarian crisis caused by the Israeli atrocities targeting Lebanon that the aggression had “reached a critical point.”

The attacks have claimed the lives of more than 3,000 people, which was “58 percent more than the 1,900 fatalities” that were caused by the regime’s 2006 war against Lebanon, the report said.

“Additionally, an estimated 1.3 million people have been displaced, both within Lebanon and into neighboring countries, 33 percent more than the number of people displaced in 2006,” it added.

Women comprised the majority of those who had been rendered homeless within Lebanon as a result of the Israeli attacks, the report noted.

It also regretted that the Israeli attacks had featured 78 assaults on healthcare facilities across the country that had claimed the lives of 130 health workers and injured 111 others.

In response to the aggression, Hezbollah has been staging hundreds of retaliatory strikes against the occupied Palestinian territories and the Israeli forces trying to advance on southern Lebanese areas.

The movement has vowed to sustain its strikes until the regime ends the escalation.

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News Network
November 12,2024

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The Palestinian Hamas resistance movement says its fighters have killed at least 20 Israeli soldiers in northern parts of the besieged Gaza Strip in just two days, in retaliation for the occupying regime’s genocidal war on the Palestinian territory.

In a statement on Monday evening, Hamas said that fighters of its military wing, al-Qassam Brigades, “killed at least five occupation soldiers” in northern parts of the coastal territory earlier in the day.

It added that Hamas fighters also killed 15 Israeli soldiers in the war-ravaged region on Sunday.

The resistance movement’s “qualitative operation … confirms once again the failure of the criminal Zionist entity to suppress and eradicate the Palestinian resistance, which continues to direct qualitative strikes against its terrorist soldiers,” Hamas further said on its Telegram channel.

Palestinians have increased their resistance operations in the face of intensified Israeli aggression in northern Gaza that has claimed the lives of more than 1,000 over the past weeks.

“Our valiant resistance is waging a war of attrition with the criminal enemy, inflicting daily losses on its soldiers and vehicles, and all of [Israeli prime minister Benjamin] Netanyahu’s bets and dreams of achieving any of his goals are failing,” the Gaza-based resistance movement added.

Hamas also vowed that Israel’s ongoing crimes and aggression against Gaza would be met with increased resistance and painful strikes, which will continue until the aggression against Palestinians ends and the regime fully withdraws from the blockaded territory.

As the war in Gaza enters its 14th month, the Health Ministry reports that Israeli attacks have killed at least 43,603 Palestinians and wounded 102,929 others.

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News Network
November 4,2024

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Hundreds of Israeli settlers conducted a brutal attack in the occupied West Bank city of Ramallah.

The settlers set fire to numerous homes and vehicles of Palestinians and then moved to the main road connecting Ramallah to other cities, targeting Palestinian cars passing by.

They stormed the city of al-Bireh, near Ramallah, and burned Palestinian property and vehicles.

A woman sustained injuries after the settlers hurled stones at her vehicle, according to Palestinian news outlets.

Tension has been running high across the West Bank because of Israel’s genocidal war in the Gaza Strip, which has killed at least 43,341 people, mostly women and children, since last year’s October.

The Monday settler attack came as the Palestinian resistance movement Hamas warned of Israel’s plans to annex the West Bank and drive Palestinians out.

“We warn of the grave danger posed by the plans led by the extremist occupation regime and illegal settler groups to displace the residents of Palestinian villages in the occupied West Bank,” Hamas official Mahmoud Mardawi said.

Israel's far-right minister Bezalel Smotrich called for the full annexation of the West Bank and the Gaza Strip last week.

Smotrich asserted that Israel should unequivocally declare there would be no Palestinian state.

He repeated his proposal of expanding Israeli settlements within the West Bank and other occupied territories.

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