العربية
HE
العربية
HE
For the past eight years, HaMoked has waged a prolonged legal battle to register two Jerusalem-born brothers who were abandoned by their parents. The brothers were born in Jerusalem in 2010 and 2011, and at a young age were abandoned by their parents, who neglected them and failed to provide for even their most basic needs. Throughout this period, the only person who cared for them was their grandmother, S. On October 25, 2018, S., a resident of East Jerusalem, submitted an application through HaMoked to the Ministry of Interior (MOI), seeking to register her grandchildren as permanent residents of Jerusalem. The brothers could not have imagined that they would have to wait eight years and undergo no fewer than seven legal proceedings and countless administrative procedures in order to realize their basic right to reside lawfully in the city where they were born.
Background:
S. was born in East Jerusalem in 1960 to a family of limited means and, at a young age, married a resident of the West Bank. In 1986, the couple had a daughter, R., who was registered in the population registry as a resident of the West Bank. In 1991, S. separated from her husband and moved to Jerusalem with her daughter R., who was then four years old. R. was never registered as a resident of Jerusalem, despite being eligible for such status as the daughter of a Jerusalem resident and having lived in the city.
In 2012, R. married a permanent resident of East Jerusalem and gave birth to two sons, but their parents did not take steps to register them as Jerusalem residents. Two years later, the couple divorced, and the mother was granted custody of the children jointly with her own mother, their grandmother. Due to ongoing neglect by their parents, on June 26, 2018, the boys were placed in emergency care and have remained under the care of the state authorities ever since. Their mother, who faced severe socioeconomic hardship, completely ceased caring for her children. As a result, their grandmother, S., became their sole caregiver in practice, caring for them on weekends and holidays when they were not staying in the welfare facilities in which they had been placed.
At the same time, S. contacted HaMoked for assistance in registering her grandchildren as permanent residents of Jerusalem. As the children are particularly vulnerable and dependent on the state for their daily needs, securing permanent residency in Jerusalem was especially vital to ensuring their access to the full range of rights to which they are entitled. On October 25, 2018, S. submitted an application to the Ministry of Interior to register the children, but the registration process proved complicated and required prolonged legal assistance. In fact, only after repeatedly resorting to legal proceedings was HaMoked able to secure the children’s basic right to reside lawfully in their home.
The legal proceedings
From the outset, the authorities’ handling of the case was characterized by bureaucratic foot-dragging and unsubstantiated refusals. The initial application to register the children went unanswered for a year and a half. Only after HaMoked filed an appeal for non-response did the Ministry of Interior issue a decision. On May 20, 2020, the Ministry rejected the application, arguing that the children’s mother was still alive and capable of caring for them and that the application for their registration therefore had to be submitted in her name. HaMoked filed an internal appeal against the decision, presenting evidence that the mother was incapable of caring for her children and that their grandmother was their legal guardian.
Following the appeal, on August 8, 2021, the authorities decided to grant the children temporary A/5 residency status for two years, with the understanding that, if their circumstances remained unchanged, their status would be upgraded to permanent residency at the end of that period. However, when the time came to renew their status, S. encountered yet another obstacle. Instead of upgrading her grandchildren’s status as promised, the authorities extended their temporary status without upgrading it, contrary to the applicable procedures.
HaMoked again filed an internal appeal against the decision, and no fewer than two additional appeals for non-response were required before the authorities addressed the matter. Worse still, when a response was finally issued on October 31, 2024, the authorities claimed that the temporary status granted three years earlier had been issued in error, decided to revoke it, and transferred the case to the Interministerial Humanitarian Committee.
After the Ministry of Interior rejected an internal appeal against this harsh decision, HaMoked filed a further appeal with the Appeals Tribunal on January 20, 2026. In the appeal, HaMoked challenged the Ministry of Interior’s narrow and stringent interpretation of Regulation 12 of the Entry into Israel Regulations, 5734-1974, which provides that the status of children residing in Israel should correspond to that of their parents or guardians. The Ministry of Interior maintained that, in this case, the determining factor was the status of their mother, who is registered as a resident of the West Bank.
The appeal argued that the Ministry of Interior’s interpretation disregarded the humanitarian purpose underlying Regulation 12 – protecting family unity and the fundamental human rights of both parents or guardians and their children. HaMoked further argued that the Ministry had ignored several key facts of decisive importance to the case. In particular, it failed to give any consideration to the fact that the grandmother was the children’s legal guardian and their caregiver in practice. Nor did it consider the consequences of revoking the status of two children for whom Jerusalem is their only home and who otherwise have no legal status anywhere in the world.
Following the appeal, on July 6, 2026, the Population Authority announced that it had decided to grant the application to upgrade the two children to permanent residency status, ex gratia and without ruling on the underlying legal question. For the brothers, Udai and Sami, now aged 14 and 15, the decision marks the beginning of a new period of stability. For the first time in their lives, they can live lawfully in their home without the threat of deportation, together with their grandmother – the only parental figure remaining in their lives – and receive the full rights to which they are entitled as permanent residents and which are essential to their rehabilitation.
At the same time, the case illustrates serious failures in the authorities’ handling of such applications. There is no justification for requiring children who were born and raised in Jerusalem, who were placed in state care and under the guardianship of a Jerusalem resident, to undergo such a lengthy and complex legal process simply to secure their status. More troubling still, the children’s difficult life circumstances, which should have weighed in their favor and resulted in greater protection, were instead used by the Ministry of Interior as grounds for stripping them of their status and separating them from the only parental figure remaining in their lives. In doing so, the Ministry of Interior has used a law intended to protect family unity in a manner that undermines its very purpose and violates the children’s fundamental right to family life.
