Gisha petitioned court on behalf of Gaza resident whose application to exit Gaza for a visa interview was delayed and ultimately refused on unspecified security grounds. The petition was dismissed.
February 19, 2017
N., a young, single woman from Gaza, has been trying to obtain a permit to enter Israel for a visa interview at the American consulate in East Jerusalem since August 2016. She wants to visit her mother, who has lived in the United States for the past two years, and who suffers from a medical condition that has deteriorated and necessitates surgery. According to procedures published by the Coordinator of Government Activity in the Territories (COGAT), Gaza residents may enter Israel for visa interviews at foreign embassies or consulates, when no such services are available in the Gaza Strip.
COGAT’s repeated delay in handling N.’s application has caused her to miss four scheduled interviews at the consulate. Ahead of the fifth appointment, scheduled for January 24, 2017, and since no reply was forthcoming, Gisha filed a petition to the Court for Administrative Affairs in Beersheva (Hebrew), naming Gisha and N. as petitioners. The court was asked to instruct COGAT to respond to N.’s request and allow her to enter Israel. Moreover, the court was asked to order COGAT to process applications made by Gaza residents in a timely fashion and respond to them no later than five days prior to the requested date of exit. Gisha asked for an urgent hearing (Hebrew).
The Gaza Coordination and Liaison Administration (CLA) only began processing the application after the petition was filed, and the petitioner was called in for an urgent security interview two days before her scheduled visa interview at the consulate. At the end of this interview, CLA officials decided to deny N.’s application for “individual security reasons.” This information was not imparted to N., and was only provided in the state’s response to the petition (Hebrew), filed one day before the scheduled visa interview. Following CLA’s decision, the court ruled (Hebrew) that the petition had become moot and refused to review the other two remedies sought. Although N.’s application was only processed in response to the petition, the court ordered the petition be deleted without issuing a costs order in her favor.
Following these events, on February 8, 2017, Gisha filed another petition on behalf of the petitioner (Hebrew) to have COGAT’s decision to deny her application on security grounds reversed. The petition argued that COGAT had not proven that the petitioner was directly involved in terrorist activity, nor had it proven that her entry into Israel for several hours for the purpose of an interview posed a security threat. COGAT presented no evidence to support its contention that the petitioner was dangerous, and provided no grounds for her refusal. In so doing, COGAT breached its duty to state the grounds for its decisions and to give the person affected an opportunity to make his or her case. It was further argued that COGAT had given security considerations exclusive and ultimate weight over their final decision, which is an unreasonable act and an abdication of its responsibility to consider other factors. The fact that COGAT never considered the implications of denying N. a permit is further indication that the decision was unreasonable. If N. is unable to enter Israel for the visa interview, she is rendered incapable of obtaining a visa to enter the USA and cannot leave Gaza to visit her mother and family, who live in the USA. The decision to deny such a basic request, based only on vague security reasons and without explanation is, therefore, a violation of the petitioner’s fundamental rights: the right to freedom of movement and the right to family life.
N. was given a sixth appointment for a visa interview on February 28, 2017. The court was asked to hold an urgent hearing (Hebrew), to give the petitioner a chance to enter Israel and fulfill her request. It was also asked to issue an increased costs order in her favor, given that she had to take legal action twice in order to get COGAT to grant her request.
On February 19, 2017, the court held a hearing on the petition. The state presented classified material ex parte, meaning other parties were not able review or access the information. After reviewing the material, the court ruled it had been persuaded that the petitioner’s entry to Israel for a visa interview did constitute a security threat and dismissed the petition.
