Gaza resident visits his four-year-old child with Down syndrome as he undergoes complex surgery in Ramallah following a petition by Gisha
January 8, 2019. The petitioner is a resident of Gaza, 44 years old, married, and a father of eight. His four-year-old son has Down syndrome and other congenital disorders and is in need of constant medical care and treatment. He has been hospitalized in the Government Hospital in Ramallah ever since he was two months old. Throughout his life, the petitioner’s wife has stayed with their young son in Ramallah, while the petitioner lives in Gaza, taking care of their other seven children. He only received a permit to visit his wife and son once in this time, in 2016.
In November 2018, the petitioner submitted a permit application in order to visit his son while he undergoes surgery, one of many he has been through in his short life. For seven weeks, Israel ignored his application. Despite repeated communications, the Gaza Civil Liaison Administration (CLA), the authority in charge of processing permit applications by Gaza residents, provided no response whatsoever, not even to confirm that the application had been received.
In the petition (Hebrew), Gisha emphasized the Gaza CLA’s inadequate conduct, and the severe harm caused to Palestinian permit applicants as a result of its tendency to leave applications pending with no response. Each year, hundreds of applications are not processed by the CLA. As this case shows, even very urgent requests often go unanswered. We argued that the CLA’s failure to respond to permit applications is a breach of the law obligating public authorities to answer requests received from the public they serve within a “reasonable timeframe.”
Upon submission of the petition, the court instructed (Hebrew) the state to respond by the next day (January 9, 2019) and scheduled a hearing on January 10, 2019. In its preliminary response to the petition, counsel for the state said that the petitioner would be granted a permit, but only for three days, as is the norm with permits approved by Israeli authorities. The state further argued that the petitioner’s son and wife were “unlawfully” present in the West Bank as they had not applied for permits to reside there. The CLA officials cautioned the petitioner against future ramifications of this situation, implying that permit applications by the petitioner or his family members are unlikely to be approved in these circumstances. CLA officials also demanded that the son and his mother return to Gaza once his treatment is completed, or contact Israel to have their status formalized.
Gisha refused to withdraw the petition, arguing that the petitioner should be granted seven days to visit his son and wife in their time of need. The respondents eventually agreed to extend the visit. The petitioner exited the Strip and traveled to the West Bank to visit his son.
