Center for the Defence of the Individual - HaMoked to the Minister of Interior: an adequate solution is needed for Palestinians living in Israel for many years in the framework of the family unification procedure
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חזרה לעמוד הקודם
02.11.2017

HaMoked to the Minister of Interior: an adequate solution is needed for Palestinians living in Israel for many years in the framework of the family unification procedure

In 2014, HaMoked filed a series of petitions to the High Court of Justice (HCJ), on behalf of Palestinian spouses of Israeli residents, who have been living in the country for many years with nothing but military stay permits, because of the Citizenship and Entry into Israel Law (Temporary Order). The Law prohibits the Minister of Interior from giving such people an upgrade to temporary or permanent Israeli status. Without status, they are not entitled to social security rights given by the National Insurance Institute. In view of the protracted infringement of the rights of this group – numbering some 9,900 people in 2016 – HaMoked requested that an exception be set in the Law to allow the grant of at least temporary Israeli status.

On October 18, 2017, the HCJ deleted the petitions, ruling that in light of the Minister of Interior’s decision of April 2016 to grant status to some 2,000 Palestinians whose family unification had been filed no later than late 2003, the situation which existed at the time the petitions were filed no longer existed and therefore there was no reason to continue deliberating them. However, the court left the door open both for challenging the Minister’s decision and filing constitutional petitions against the Citizenship and Entry into Israel Law.

Following the judgment, HaMoked wrote to the Minister of Interior, calling on him to formulate a solution for the growing population of Palestinians who had filed their family unification application after the decisive date and therefore could not benefit from his beneficial decision. HaMoked stressed that a decision whereby all residents of the OPT living in Israel for long in the framework of the family unification procedure could receive temporary status in the country, would satisfy the needed balance between the security needs which the state seeks to guard and the basic rights of a large group of people who only want to maintain normal life in the place where they live.