العربية
HE
العربية
HE
In many of HaMoked’s cases, years of intensive administrative advocacy and repeated litigation are required: submitting applications, objections and administrative appeals, attending administrative hearings, handling extensive correspondence and phone calls, repeatedly providing up-to-date documentation and more. Often, success is achieved only as a result of this persistent effort – as in the following case, concerning the status upgrade of a woman who was a victim of domestic violence.
In 2003, the woman, born in Jordan, married a Palestinian permanent resident of Israel and moved to live with him in annexed East Jerusalem. The couple had four daughters, all of whom were registered in the Population Registry and granted permanent residency in Israel. In 2007, after her husband submitted a family unification application on her behalf, the woman was granted a B/1 visa. In December 2009, her status was upgraded to temporary residency, which was periodically renewed pursuant to the graduated family unification procedures — at the end of which, she was to receive permanent residency.
In 2011, after she suffered for years from severe domestic abuse, the woman filed a police complaint against her spouse, which led to a criminal indictment. A restraining order was issued barring him from approaching the family home, and in early 2012, shortly after the birth of her youngest daughter, the woman was granted custody of all four children.
Around the same time, the woman submitted a request for permanent residency on humanitarian grounds, seeking to provide the family with some sense of stability and security. Over two years later, in April 2014, the Ministry of Interior decided to renew her temporary residency. The response stated that after another two-year period, “the applicant’s continued status will be examined... in accordance with the relevant updated circumstances”. Shortly before the end of that period, on February 22, 2016, HaMoked submitted a request to upgrade the woman’s status to permanent residency. On May 16, 2016, the Ministry of Interior rejected the request, stating that the woman’s status had not been granted under a procedure that could conclude in an upgrade, but rather based on an exceptional humanitarian decision by the inter-ministerial committee, and therefore, the request “does not meet the criteria and must be rejected outright”.
HaMoked filed an internal administrative appeal, followed by two additional legal proceedings over the lack of response, and was ultimately compelled to submit an appeal to the Appeals Tribunal against the rejection. On October 29, 2018, the Appeals Tribunal ruled that while the passage of time since receiving humanitarian status does not, in itself, justify an upgrade, it must still be given due weight as a “significant factor” – given that inevitably, “the longer the status-upgrade applicant has resided in Israel, the deeper their ties to the country”. In view of the women’s circumstances, and especially “the uncertainty and instability surrounding the appellant’s status, [which] also harms the minor daughters’ sense of security”, the Tribunal accepted the appeal. The Tribunal ruled that “upon the expiration of the woman’s temporary residency (A/5 visa) (i.e. on May 6, 2019), and barring any criminal or security preclusions, her status is to be upgraded to permanent residency”. The Tribunal also awarded the appellants legal costs of NIS 3,000.
The State appealed the judgment but did not seek to overturn it in full or challenge its key findings regarding the weight of the elapse of time or the harm to the children. It merely requested that the operative remedy be canceled, claiming it bound the state’s future discretion in the matter. The State also argued that the judgment did not take into account a recent revision to Procedure 5.2.0022 on handling status applications on humanitarian grounds. On May 5, 2019, the State’s appeal was accepted, such that only the operative clauses of the ruling were annulled.
Since then, the woman’s temporary residency status had been extended annually without change. In the meantime, two of her daughters reached adulthood and entered national service, while continuing to live with their mother and younger sisters.
On May 29, 2024, HaMoked submitted an additional request to upgrade the woman’s status to permanent residency on humanitarian grounds, noting, among other things, that she had lived in Jerusalem under temporary status since 2009, and on humanitarian grounds for about a decade.
In March 2025, the Ministry of Interior notified the woman that she would be granted permanent residency – some 22 years after she first made her home in Jerusalem.
