Children with Palestinian fathers granted citizenship

The Egyptian Ministry of Interior has granted citizenship to 664 children of Palestinians married to Egyptian women, Cairo-based Al-Ahram newspaper reported on Sunday. Prior to 2004, the children of Egyptian women married to foreigners were not allowed to obtain Egyptian citizenship. The law was amended in 2004 after legal battles and protests to allow children of foreign fathers to obtain Egyptian nationality, Al-Ahram said. However, Palestinians in Egypt were left out of the changes amid justifications according to the Arab League’s position which seeks to protect the Palestinian right of return. Two years later, the Arab League announced that there was no connection between the right of return and the right to be granted Egyptian citizenship. In addition to 664 Palestinians, children of fathers from other nationalities were also granted citizenship. Egyptian sources told Al-Ahram that the list included; 16 Sudanese, 3 Syrians, 13 Yemenis, 6 Libyans, 5 Jordanians, 2 Tunisians, two Canadians, one Moroccan, one Algerian, one American, one Swiss and one German. As of 2007, there were approximately seven million Palestinian refugees worldwide, representing 70% of the global Palestinian population of 9.8 million people, BADIL Resource Center for Palestinian Residency and Refugee Rights in Bethlehem said