JERUSALEM, Dec. 2 (Xinhua) -- The Israeli government revoked the residency of several thousand East Jerusalem Arabs in 2008, marking a skyrocketing increase, local daily Ha'aretz reported on Wednesday.

    Citing statistics from the Israeli Interior Ministry, the report said that a total of 4,577 Arab residents of the disputed eastern section of the holy city were stripped of their residency rights last year.

    The figure amounted to 21 times the average of the previous 40 years, which saw 8,558 Arabs lose their residency status in total, according to the report.

    The sharp increase last year came after the ministry carried out an extensive investigation of the legal status of East Jerusalem residents, which found that thousands of people registered as East Jerusalem residents were no longer living in Israel, said the report.

    It added that if an Israeli resident stays out of the country for seven years or obtain citizenship, permanent residency or some other form of legal status in another country, then he or she will lose the Israeli residency automatically.

    "The phenomenon of revoking people's residency has reached frightening dimensions," Dalia Kerstein, executive director of the Hamoked human rights group, was quoted as saying.

    "The Interior Ministry operation in 2008 is just part of a general policy whose goal is to restrict the size of the Palestinian population and maintain a Jewish majority in Jerusalem," added Kerstein, while stressing that "the Palestinians are natives of this city, not Johnny-come-latelys."

    However, former Interior Minister Meir Sheetrit, who pushed forward the 2008 investigation, was quoted as saying that the measure was necessary, because "Israel pays billions of shekels a year in stipends to people who don't even live here." He also stressed that those who object to the revocations can always appeal.

    Israel captured East Jerusalem in 1967 and later annexed the Arab-dominated area. Arabs living there have long been complaining about discrimination, and the Palestinians want East Jerusalem to be the capital of their future state.