Israel denies an elderly cancer patient permits to enter Gaza for her sister’s funeral. Following High Court petition by Gisha, Israel reverses its denial
February 13, 2019. The petitioner is a 70-year-old mother of 13, and a cancer patient. She was born in the Gaza Strip and moved to Israel in 1968 following her marriage to an Israeli citizen. She recently received news that her sister had passed away in Gaza. When she found out, she waited to receive a copy of her sister’s death certificate and immediately submitted a permit application to enter the Strip to attend the funeral. Given her medical condition, she asked to be accompanied by her daughter.
The very same day the application was submitted, the office in charge of dealing with permit applications by Israeli citizens within the Gaza Civil Liaison Administration (CLA) notified Gisha that the petitioner’s application had been denied due to a pending case with the Collection System Authority, the Israeli governmental body in charge of collecting outstanding debts. The petitioner immediately settled her debt, an outstanding payment to the electric company, but for unknown technical reasons, the computer system wasn’t updated right away. When Gisha contacted the CLA once more, we were told that seeing as her sister’s funeral had already taken place, the petitioner’s application failed to meet the criteria for obtaining a permit to visit family.
In the petition (Hebrew) submitted on her behalf, we argued that the petitioner’s application did in fact meet the narrow criteria set by Israel for the entrance of Israeli citizens into the Strip. We further argued that the Gaza CLA often interprets the criteria unreasonably narrowly, thereby violating the fundamental rights of permit applicants. Given that Israel’s stringent criteria preclude family members that are divided between Israel and Gaza from seeing each other other than in the rarest of circumstances (a wedding, grave illness, or death of a first-degree relative), Israel should not wrongfully employ an overly literal interpretation in order to prevent even these rare reunions.
The day after the petition was submitted, the state announced it had withdrawn its denial, and that the petitioner and her daughter would both receive permits to enter Gaza. The petitioner traveled to the Strip the next day, was reunited with her family and got an opportunity to mourn her sister’s passing alongside them. Accordingly, we withdrew the petition and insisted on a costs order. The court accepted our position and issued a 7,500 ILS costs order in Gisha’s favor.
