Press Releases

New BADIL bulletin: The Permit Maze - Palestinians need permits to move, to live, for everything

BADIL Resource Center
03 November 2003
For Immediate Release


THE PERMIT MAZE

Palestinians need permits to move, to live, for everything

(see full article)

 

There is only one thing straightforward about the maze of permit regulations for Palestinians in West Bank and Gaza.  Despite the Oslo accords and other interim agreements, all applications for identity documents end up being approved or rejected by some Israeli authority.

 

The maze of permits regularly becomes more tangled.  In addition to permits they need even to live in their own homes let alone travel a few kilometers to work or see family, the Israeli authorities have introduced a new model. 

 

The new permit is for people caught between the “security fence” and the West Bank-Israel border, an area being called the “seam zone”.  More than 12,000 Palestinians, so far, are in this trap and more may follow as the “fence” snakes its way around and through towns.  Palestinians living within these areas are required to obtain permits to enter the area and live there.  Conditions for leaving will be determined by the Israeli authorities.

 

Another group of people living east of the “fence” need permits to enter or leave the area to work on land in the “seam zone” they own and have farmed for generations.

 

This is only the tip of the iceberg says BADIL Resource Center for Palestinian Residency and Refugee Rights.  While freedom of movement may be restricted under international law for security reasons, it has become the norm for Palestinians’ movements to be continuously restricted limiting access to work, medical care, education and even food supplies and water.

 

BADIL’s web site has a new report on permits and identity documents needed by Palestinians to move from town to town, across town or abroad.  They may even need a permit to travel to an Israeli government office to obtain another kind of document or a permit to repair their home, something that will probably be denied. 

 

Some countries are debating introduction of national identity cards.  Many don’t approve. What would they think if they had to carry two or three types of permit plus an identity card issued by an occupying authority just to visit their mother in a neighboring village?

 

See The Permit Maze on www.badil.org.  The web site also has proceedings from recent BADIL conferences on Palestinian issues, background discussion papers and documents on Palestinian refugee rights. 
 


For further information contact: BADIL, P.O. Box 728, Bethlehem

Tel/Fax: 970-2-274-7346 or resource @badil.org