Following a High Court petition, two Christian families received permits to travel from Gaza to the West Bank for the Christmas holiday
On December 14, 2017, Gisha filed a petition on behalf of two Christian families from Gaza. For years, the families had been denied permits to travel together from Gaza to the West Bank for the Christian holidays. Each holiday, some family members’ permit applications were approved, and others denied, inexplicably. The permits are only issued days before the holiday, or even during the holiday itself, leaving families no time to petition the court against the permit refusals.
The petition was filed following Gisha’s long-standing efforts to secure freedom of religious worship for Christian and Muslim residents of Gaza. Every year, Gisha contacts the Coordinator of Government Activities in the Territories (COGAT) to request that the holiday permit quotas he issues are published before the holiday.
On October 31, 2017, Gisha sent a letter (Hebrew) to COGAT to ensure that the so-called ”special holiday measures” would be made known to the public on time for permit applications to be submitted. COGAT was also asked to address the practice of separating families for the holidays by approving some family members’ permits and denying others’. Since COGAT failed to address any of the issues that were raised in its response (Hebrew), a further communication (Hebrew) was sent. Gisha has not received responses to either of the inquiries.
As Christmas approached, Gisha sent a letter (Hebrew) to the Gaza Civil Liaison Administration (CLA) on the matter of the two families named in the petition. The CLA was asked to cease the practice of splitting the families by only approving some of their permits. Within hours, the CLA replied (Hebrew) that unlike previous years, when at least some members of the families had received permits, this year none of the family members, including the children, would be permitted to exit the Strip.
Gisha then drafted the petition (Hebrew) to challenge the CLA’s decision.
Though the petition was scheduled for a hearing on December 21, 2017, on December 19, 2017, the CLA announced that they had changed their position, and most of the petitioners (seven out of eight) would be permitted to exit Gaza for the Chrsitmas holiday. On December 20, 2017, the eighth petitioner was also approved for travel, after a security interview. Thus, the CLA changed its position with respect to all eight petitioners, and for the first time in years, the two families were able to spend the holiday as a family, and visit the holy places in the West Bank.
Since all of the petitioners had received travel permits, the state requested to have the petition deleted (Hebrew). Gisha objected (Hebrew) since, in addition to obtaining the individual permits for the specific families, the petition sought to compel the state to provide holiday exit permits in advance of the holiday. In fact, the petitioners had only been able to challenge the CLA’s initial decision to deny their permits because they were notified of the decision in advance. The court rejected the state’s request to delete the petition and instructed (Hebrew) the state to respond to the petitioners’ claims regarding the timing of the permits.
