Israel has recalled its diplomatic envoy to Warsaw over the changes, branding the law "anti-Semitic". The legislation relates to claims on property stolen by Nazi Germany, then seized by Poland's communist regime. The law sets a 30-year limit on challenges to such confiscations. As most happened soon after the war, many outstanding claims will now be blocked. The Polish government says the change will end a period of legal chaos, but Israel condemned it forcibly.
"Poland today approved - not for the first time - an immoral, anti-Semitic law," Israeli Foreign Minister Yair Lapid said in a statement. Mr Lapid also said he was recommending Poland's ambassador to Israel remain on his summer holiday in Poland. "He should use the time available to him to explain to the Poles what the Holocaust means to the citizens of Israel and how much we will not tolerate contempt for the memory of the victims and the memory of the Holocaust," he tweeted.
Mr Duda said signing the bill into law ends an era of legal chaos in the process of handing back confiscated properties. In recent decades property restitution has become deeply mired in corruption, with title claims being bought and sold, and tenants suddenly finding themselves thrown out of their apartments from one day to the next. Jewish claims account for just a minority of total claims, most of which have been made by Poles. As a result, the law received the backing of Poland's opposition as well as the government.
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