S. moved from the West Bank to Gaza after marriage, partly because Israel’s permit regime does not allow family unification in the West Bank for Palestinian couples where one of the couple is registered as a Gaza resident. She and her husband had six children in Gaza. The eldest is 14, and the youngest is less than a year old. Her four-year-old son has a heart condition and was due to undergo heart surgery after some tests at Israeli hospitals. For five months, S. submitted applications for a permit for medical needs for her son and permanent relocation to the West Bank for herself and her children (in keeping with her registered address). Her applications were never answered.
On January 23, 2022, Gisha filed a petition (Hebrew) on her behalf, demanding she and her children be issued permits to return to the West Bank urgently and no later than a date that would allow her to arrive for the hospital tests scheduled for her son on February 21, 2022.
After the petition was filed, the state claimed the application to move to the West Bank had never been forwarded to Israel’s Gaza Coordination and Liaison Administration, the military body which receives and processes applications, by the Palestinian Civil Affairs Committee. The state then immediately withdrew this claim and approved the application without a court hearing on the petition. On February 15, 2022, the petitioner and her children exited the Gaza Strip and relocated to the West Bank. At our request, once they exited Gaza, the petition was deleted (Hebrew).