For nearly three decades, Israel revoked without warning the residency status of thousands of Palestinians who traveled abroad, according to a document leaked to local media.

Between 1967, when Israel came into control of the Palestinian territories, until the Oslo Accords signing in 1994, Palestinians entering Jordan from the Allenby Bridge border crossing, were asked to deposit their ID cards with officials at the bridge. They were then granted a special laisser passer before leaving Israel, according to a report in the Ha'aretz daily.

The temporary card was valid for three years, and renewable three times, adding another year each time. Palestinians who did not return within six months after the card's expiration date, however, were listed as "NLR - No Longer Residents."

"We've been dealing with this issue for many years, but we never got a hold of the numbers," said Ido Blum, Head of the legal department at The Israeli Center for the Defense of the Individual (CDI).

"The Israeli Authorities admitted to this policy, it was publicly known, but we just didn't know the scope of it. We were shocked when we got the numbers, around 140,000 people," Blum told Xinhua.

"This means," he commented, "that 13 or 14 percent of the Palestinian population at that time was not permitted to enter and still isn't. And we're not counting the children those people may have had abroad, who are as well not allowed to live in their homeland."

The CDI sent Ha'aretz the document, in which the legal advisor for the Judea and Samaria (West Bank) Civil Administration admitted to stripping Palestinian of their residency status under the procedure.

The document was written by the legal adviser in response to a judicial petition from CDI to disclose the exact number of Palestinians who had lost their residence status.

"Israel is engaging in a systematic policy of displacement to gain land and reduce the demographics in the West Bank," Chief Palestinian negotiator, Saeb Erekat, commented in a statement to the newspaper.

Erekat slammed the policy, calling it a "war crime" against the Palestinian people. "In light of the report," Erekat called on the countries that have not recognized a Palestinian state to promptly do so in order to prevent Israel from continuing the measure.