JERUSALEM: Israel has deported a Filipino migrant worker and her Israeli-born teenage son after 11th hour legal appeals failed, a children’s rights group and authorities said Tuesday.
She is among some 600 workers from the Philippines who activists say could face deportation over a loss of residency status.
They include those who breached the conditions of their residency by starting families in the country.
The families and supporters say deporting the children to a country which they have never seen and whose languages they do not speak is a cruel policy.
Rosemarie Perez was arrested by immigration officials along with her 13-year-old son Rohan last week for remaining in the country illegally.
They had been taken to Ben-Gurion airport near Tel Aviv on Sunday night after an appeals court upheld their deportation, Beth Franco of the United Children of Israel (UCI) association said.
But they were taken off the plane after their lawyer requested an urgent hearing on their status in a bid to have them remain in Israel.
On Monday evening, they were escorted to Ben-Gurion airport where they were put on a flight to Bangkok for onward connection to Manila, Franco said.
Israel’s immigration authority confirmed in a statement they had been deported, adding Perez had been in the country illegally for 12 years and that all court appeals had been exhausted.
Last week, migrants, their children and Israeli supporters held a protest in Tel Aviv against the policy of deporting Israeli-born children of migrants.
Many of the 28,000 — largely Christian — Filipinos in Israel arrived to work as caregivers and home help, but according to UCI, some 600 families could now face expulsion.
Their visas were conditioned on the requirement that they do not start a family in the country apart from certain exceptions, the association says.
The issue has particular resonance in Israel, where there are long-term fears about maintaining a Jewish majority in the country which was founded as a national homeland for Jews.

DUBAI: The Yemeni army’s continued push has provoked the Houthi militia into spreading misleading messages via their media, the Arab coalition’s spokesman said.

Col. Turki Al-Maliki said the militia falsified events, claiming victories where none had been achieved to preserve morale among their troops.

Meanwhile Houthis continue to deceive Yemeni tribes to offer their children to fight alongside the militia, Al-Maliki said.

In December 2018, a senior Houthi military official told the Associated Press that the militia had recruited 18,000 child soldiers into their army since the beginning of the war in 2014.   

British tabloid The Mirror reported in May that children were being handed keys for “entering paradise.”

The recruiting of child soldiers breaches international law.

Sheikh Khaled Al-Thani, the brother of Qatari emir Sheikh Tamim bin Hamad Al-Thani, ordered a member of his security staff to murder two people, according to a lawsuit filed by two former employees.

It was submitted to a Florida court on July 23 by Matthew Pittard, a security professional, and Matthew Allende, who was hired to be a round-the-clock medic for Sheikh Khaled, a racing-car driver. 

Pittard claims that he was threatened at gunpoint in September 2017 after refusing to carry out Sheikh Khaled’s orders to murder an unnamed man and woman the sheikh said were threats to his social reputation. The incident is said to have happened in Los Angeles, California.

The following year, according to the lawsuit, Sheikh Khaled imprisoned an American in his palace in Qatar. The unnamed captive was arrested on Sheikh Khaled’s orders and held at for a time at Onaiza Police Station in Doha, as well as at his residence, it is claimed.

When he discovered that Pittard had helped the captive escape, the sheikh told him “he would kill him, bury his body in the desert, and kill Pittard’s family,” it is alleged. Pittard said Sheikh Khaled threatened him with a Glock 26 automatic pistol and ordered him to reveal the whereabouts of the American or “pay the price.” He was later fired.

According to the court documents, Allende was also threatened with a gun, and forced to work long hours with little time off. He eventually climbed a 2-meter security fence and jumped from the top of a 6-meter wall to escape Sheik Khaled’s Qatari compound after he was refused permission to leave for a previously arranged day off.

“There is no circumstance in any country where asking someone to execute two people on someone’s behalf is appropriate,” said lawyer Rebecca Lynn Castaneda, who is representing Pittard and Allende. “It’s not OK. It’s not acceptable. It’s illegal. It’s pretty egregious. Pittard and Allende said there were several situations in which they were put by the defendant that were totally inappropriate.”

She said her clients are seeking $33 million in damages because Sheikh Khaled’s  actions prevented them from pursuing their careers, including interference in a security, law-enforcement and arms-brokerage contract Pittard had negotiated with the Police Training Institute in Doha. Sheikh Khaled is being sued personally, and his two companies, GEO Strategic Defense Solutions and KH Holdings are also named in the lawsuit.

Sheikh Khaled “created an environment of fear and intimidation. Defendant’s behavior has gone beyond a term of employment and intentionally extended into Pittard’s business and personal and professional lives,” the lawsuit claims.

Castaneda said the judge had issued a summons ordering Sheikh Khaled to appear in court. She said she expected the legal process to continue for many months and the case is “a long way from trial.”

DUBAI: The British territory of Gibraltar will not yet release an Iranian oil tanker seized by Royal Marines in the Mediterranean despite an Iranian report that it could do so on Tuesday, an official Gibraltar source said.
The commandeering of the Grace 1 on July 4 exacerbated frictions between Tehran and the West and led to retaliatory moves in Gulf waterways used to ship oil.
Britain accused the vessel of violating European sanctions by taking oil to Syria, a charge Tehran denies.
The deputy head of Iran’s Ports and Maritime Organization, Jalil Eslami, said on Tuesday that Britain was thinking of freeing the Grace 1 following an exchange of documents.
“The vessel was seized based on false allegations,” Eslami said in comments reported by state news agency IRNA. “We hope the release will take place soon.”
Iran’s semi-official Fars news agency, quoting unidentified Gibraltar authorities, said the tanker would be freed by Tuesday evening.
However, a senior source in the government of British overseas territory denied that would happen on Tuesday.
Although Grace 1 was seized by British forces, Britain said on Tuesday that investigations into the tanker Grace were a matter for Gibraltar. The territory has denied Iran’s claim that the action was taken on the orders of Tehran’s longtime foe Washington.
“As this is an ongoing investigation, we are unable to comment further,” a British Foreign Office spokesman said.
Tehran has denied the vessel was doing anything improper and in retaliation Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps troops seized the British-flagged Stena Impero tanker in the Strait of Hormuz on July 19 for alleged marine violations.
The Gulf tanker crisis has added to worsening hostilities since Washington pulled out of Iran’s 2015 nuclear deal with six powers, under which Tehran agreed to curb its nuclear work in return for lifting most international sanctions on Tehran.
The Iranian capture of the Stena Impero drew condemnation from Britain and other European parties to the nuclear deal that have been trying to salvage it by shielding Iran’s economy from reimposed and toughened US sanctions.
Unlike the seized Iranian tanker, which was carrying a cargo of up to 2.1 million barrels of oil, the Stena Impero was on its way to the Gulf and empty at the time it was seized by Iranian forces.
Millions of barrels of oil pass daily through the various bottlenecks from Middle East oil producers to markets across the globe.

JERUSALEM: The deportation of a Filipino migrant worker and her Israeli-born teenage son was delayed at the 11th hour to await a final decision on their fate.

Rosemarie Perez was arrested by immigration officials along with her 13-year-old son Rohan last Tuesday for remaining in the country illegally.

They were taken to Ben-Gurion airport near Tel Aviv on Sunday night but later taken off the plane, said Beth Franco of the United Children of Israel (UCI) association.

The lawyer for the family, Carmel Bensur, has requested an urgent hearing on their status in a bid to have them remain in Israel, she told AFP.

On Sunday, a court had rejected Perez’s plea to stay, immigration authority spokeswoman Sabine Haddad told AFP.

“She has been here illegally for 10 years,” Haddad said.

UCI argues that it is cruel to send Rohan — and other children of migrants — to a country they have never seen and where they do not speak the language.

Last week, migrants, their children and Israelis staged a protest in Tel Aviv against the policy of deporting Israeli-born children of migrants.

Many of the 28,000 — largely Christian — Filipinos in Israel arrived to work as caregivers and home help, but according to UCI, some 600 families could now face expulsion over a loss of residency status.

Visas were conditioned on the requirement that they do not start a family in the country apart from certain exceptions, the association says.

The issue has particular resonance in Israel, where there are long-term fears about maintaining a Jewish majority in the country founded as a national homeland for Jews in the wake of the Holocaust.