A Palestinian woman from the West Bank married a resident of the Gaza in 2012. Because of Israel’s separation policy, which almost completely prevents Palestinians from moving from the Gaza Strip to the West Bank, and does not recognize marriage as grounds for allowing such a move, the young woman had to move to Gaza to live with her husband.
On October 27, 2014, she applied for the first time, for a permit to visit her mother in the West Bank along with her husband and daughter. The mother had taken ill and had been admitted to a Nablus hospital in serious condition several times. After repeated communications on her behalf by HaMoked went unanswered, the army finally said the woman and her daughter would be allowed to travel to the West Bank, but would not be allowed back to Gaza. The military said that the woman had entered Gaza through Rafah Crossing in the past, and therefore, her return there would not be approved. According to the military, once the woman arrived in the West Bank, she could make another request, to travel to Gaza. It is worth noting that these types of applications get tangled in red tape and must meet strict and narrow criteria, making it entirely uncertain that her application, if she were to make one, would be approved. The husband was denied passage altogether.
On February 17, 2015,
HaMoked petitioned the High Court of Justice, demanding the military be instructed to allow the woman to travel from Gaza to the West Bank along with her husband and daughter, and return to Gaza once the visit ends. HaMoked stressed that the decision to approve travel to the West Bank only constitutes a substantive change in the military’s policy. So far, cases that met the narrow humanitarian criteria enumerated in the military’s procedures, received permits that provided for both the visit to the West Bank and the return trip to Gaza. HaMoked explained that without a clear guarantee that she would be allowed to return home, the woman would not travel to the West Bank and said that the decision was arbitrary and unreasonable and that it violated the rights to family life and freedom of movement. HaMoked also reiterated its principled position that the West Bank and the Gaza Strip form a single territorial unit.
