Following High Court petition by Gisha, Israel’s Population and Immigration Authority introduces protocol to facilitate registration of children born in Gaza to mothers with Israeli citizenship
July 15, 2019. There are several hundred Palestinians with Israeli citizenship or permanent residency status in Israel living in the Gaza Strip today. Most of them are women who married Gaza residents and moved to the Strip, given Israel’s prohibition on Palestinian family reunification in Israel. Under Section 4(2)(d) of the Citizenship Law – 1952, children of Israeli citizens are entitled to Israeli citizenship by birth. According to the law, to be registered as citizens they must file an application with the Population Administration and register in the Israeli population registry. In the past, this process required the parent with Israeli citizenship to exit Gaza and enter Israel. Because of the complex bureaucracy involved in coordinating the return of Palestinians with Israeli citizenship to their homes in Gaza, every time they exit the Strip, they are forced to stay in Israel for lengthy periods of time until they are granted a new permit from Israeli authorities to return to Gaza.
Until 2017, mothers with Israeli citizenship were allowed to enter Israel from Gaza with their children in order to complete the registration process. Beginning that year, however, the Israeli authority called the Coordinator of Government Activities in the Territories (COGAT) changed its policy and began systematically refusing to allow children to enter Israel with their mothers, even for the purpose of registration as citizens.
Due to this change, Palestinian mothers had to make a choice between leaving their children in the Strip for several weeks in order to register them as Israeli citizens, or forego the process and with it, their children’s status as citizens. Often, parents were compelled to stay in Gaza with their children, meaning that their children were not afforded the rights associated with Israeli citizenship.
In a High Court petition (Hebrew) submitted in March 2018, Gisha demanded that the Population and Immigration Authority (PIA) allow minors to be registered in the population registry without their parents having to attend an immigration authority office in person, or, alternatively, allow PIA representatives at Erez Crossing to complete the registration on-site. In its response (Hebrew) to the petition, the state claimed it had tweaked the relevant protocol so as to address the issue raised in the petition: The state would allow Gaza parents with Israeli citizenship to file an application to return to the Strip before they exit to register their children in Israel. In addition, suggested the state, parents would be able to access PIA offices located near the Strip (in the Israeli cities of Beersheva, Ashkelon and Ashdod), without having to make an appointment in advance. The state contended that these modifications would allow individuals to complete the registration process and return to the Strip on the very same day. As such, the state requested that the petition be deleted without holding a hearing.
Gisha objected to the state’s request to delete the petition, partly since the state refused to formalize these arrangements in writing or to amend existing protocols, insisting that “clarifications” on its existing protocols were sufficient. Contrary to the state’s assurances, the experience of a Gisha client who exited Gaza to register one of her children immediately after the state claimed the clarifications had been made demonstrated that the relevant offices in Israel had not been made aware of the change and their obligation to provide same-day services to Gaza residents.
At a hearing held on July 15, 2019, the state’s representative said that the new arrangement had not yet been implemented due to a “misunderstanding,” but that the issue has since been clarified and no further issues are expected to arise. When the justices asked why registration services could not be offered at Erez Crossing, the state argued that while PIA employees and “coordinators” are present at the crossing, it is not a regular office. The court accepted the state’s explanations. In its ruling (Hebrew), the court specified that new arrangements had been established to allow Gaza residents to enter Israel to register their children and return to the Strip the same day, and ordered the petition be deleted.
