Center for the Defence of the Individual - The military repeatedly prevented a 7-year-old girl from entering Israel to visit her imprisoned father: following HaMoked’s petition, the military has acknowledged that this was “an error”
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חזרה לעמוד הקודם
22.01.2017

The military repeatedly prevented a 7-year-old girl from entering Israel to visit her imprisoned father: following HaMoked’s petition, the military has acknowledged that this was “an error”

Seven-year-old R. was born a few months before her father, from the district of Hebron, was sentenced to serve a life term in an Israeli prison. The only way the child and her father can see each other is through R.’s visits – even if short and limited – to prison, in the company of her mother or some other relative. These meetings, no matter how difficult, are of undoubted vital importance, emanating the basic right to family life, guaranteed to every person.

In August 2016, R. and her mother made their way to Israel to visit the incarcerated father. At the checkpoint, the soldiers prevented the 7-year-old girl from crossing through on the claim that the she was “banned from entry” to Israel!

In September 2016, soldiers prevented her from entering Israel one more time, when she tried to visit her father with her grandmother on Eid al Adha. A third unsuccessful attempt was made in October 2016.

On November 17, 2016 HaMoked contacted the military to demand the child be allowed to enter Israel to finally meet her father. As no response arrived from the military, HaMoked petitioned the Jerusalem District Court on the matter on December 14, 2016.

In its response to the petition, submitted January 2, 2017, the state admitted that “after a reexamination by the competent entities, the ban entered for the petitioner has been removed… [a ban] which was apparently entered in error”. Despite the injustice done to the child, her father and their family, the state requested the petition be deleted without the court ordering the state to pay costs.

HaMoked on its part insisted that the state should bear the petitioners’ costs, given the fact that this was not an isolated case, but a recurring “error”, which the state had not yet managed to correct.

On January 19, 2017, the court ordered the state to pay the petition costs in the sum of ILS 7,500.

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