Following petition by Gisha, Israel allows family of five to return from Jordan to their home in Gaza
October 7, 2020. The K. family traveled from Gaza to Jordan via Rafah Crossing (between Israel and Egypt) in December 2019. Their infant daughter has a serious illness, and the family went to Jordan to look into the possibility of one of them donating bone marrow to the child, who was receiving treatment at the King Hussein Cancer Center. On May 17, 2020, as her treatment was nearing completion, the parents submitted an application to Israeli authorities via the Palestinian Civil Affairs Committee (PCAC) for a permit to return to their home in Gaza. Several days after they filed the permit application, the Palestinian Authority announced it was stopping coordination with Israel over its plans to annex areas of the West Bank. The PCAC stopped accepting new permit applications and forwarding them to Israeli authorities. The K. family’s application was not forwarded to the Israeli side.
After weeks of waiting for the situation to change and realizing there was no change in sight, Gisha contacted the Gaza Coordination and Liaison Administration (CLA, the Israeli authority in charge of processing and responding to permit requests by Gaza residents) on behalf of the family on August 13. Repeated communications to the CLA failed to yield a decision.
On September 23, Gisha filed a petition (Hebrew) on the family’s behalf, arguing that returning home and to one’s homeland is a fundamental right to which every human being is entitled under international law. The state’s failure to respond to the K.s’ application effectively denied the petitioners this basic right and forced them to remain away from their home for a prolonged and indefinite length of time. Gisha further argued that given its exclusive control over travel through Erez Crossing, Israel is obligated to process permit applications by Gaza residents regardless of Palestinian coordination, adding that this duty is only enhanced in cases with such blatant and pressing humanitarian circumstances.
After Gisha filed the petition, the CLA announced that the K. family would be allowed to return home, and on October 1, months after they first applied to return, the K. parents and their three children returned to Gaza via Allenby Bridge and Erez crossings. Given that the remedy sought in the petition had been granted, and once the K. family had returned to the Strip, the petition was withdrawn.
