Passengers are seen at the departure hall in the Ben Gurion Airport near Tel Aviv, the occupied territories
Tel Aviv, November 11 (RHC)-- Data shows an increase in the number of Israeli settlers leaving the occupied territories, even before Tel Aviv's ongoing genocidal war in the besieged Gaza Strip.
In a report on Monday, the Ynet news website cited figures from Israel's Central Bureau of Statistics (CBS), revealing a surge in the number of Israeli settlers choosing to live outside the occupied territories, even before the occupying regime launched its brutal war in Gaza on October 7 last year.
The Shoresh Institution, defined as an independent policy research center focusing on Israel’s primary socioeconomic challenges, citing data from the CBS, also reported that the increase stands at 42 percent for Israeli settlers choosing to live in other parts of the world outside of the occupied territories.
According to the report, the surge occurred primarily in the months after prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu's current coalition came to power and during his so-called legislative reforms aimed at altering the balance of power between the branches of the regime, with 24,900 leaving compared to 17,520.
Through the reforms, now shelved, Netanyahu sought to enfeeble the regime's supreme court by robbing it of the power to strike down either the cabinet or the legislature's decisions.
Meanwhile, the number of Israelis returning after living outside the occupied territories decreased by seven percent compared to the past decade's average of 12,214, with only 11,300 returning to the occupied territories during the same period last year, the report added.
This results in a consistent and statistically notable gap between emigrants and returnees, with the former outnumbering the latter by a significant 44 percent, highlighting a deeper systemic issue in migration trends.
The authors of the report warn that the rising emigration trend could have significant long-term socio-economic consequences, especially if the ongoing political and security crises persist in the Israeli occupied territories.
