Article 74 November 1997, Issue No.1
November 1997, Issue No.1 (6)
Muhammad Hassan Ali Sweidan, 28, from Nablus, married his cousin, Hanan Sabr Abdel Satter Sudan, 24, who was born in Amman after the beginning of the Israeli occupation in 1967. They married in 1985, and have been trying ever since to live in Nablus.
For the first three years of their marriage, Hanan went back and forth, obtaining visitors’ permits and leaving for Jordan when they expired. Their five year old son, Muhammad, was born in Nablus and registered in his father’s identity card; a procedure which will enable him also to become a resident. Their daughter Sirin, aged 4, was born in Nablus in October 1987, children whose mothers are not residents may no longer be registered in their father’s identity cards; they are without documents and often stateless.
Residence policies, embedded in a network of military regulations; many of which are unpublished, and some of which constantly change, are a complicated and often tedious business. Nevertheless, their effect has been to transform the conditions of people’s lives so as to make them almost unbearable.
The formative event in Israeli residence policies was the September 1967 census of residents in the Occupied Territories, conducted under curfew and with borders sealed to prevent anyone from returning. Unlike most censuses, which simply count the number of people according to categories, for purposes of providing information and services, this census served as a basis for deciding who had the right to live in the territories. Anyone not physically present for whatever reason, did not receive residence; i.e., was not eligible to receive an Israeli ID card. Neither do Palestinians who did obtain residence in 1967 enjoy security. Residence, according to Israeli military law, is not comparable with citizenship. They do have the right to live in the Occupied Territories, to work and to own property. These rights, however, can be withdrawn at any time, for reasons which range from bureaucratic technicalities to the assumed intention of living elsewhere (taking on a foreign passport, for example). If these rights are withdrawn, their property, especially land, may go to the Custodian of Absentee Property.
Israel’s policies regarding Palestinian residence in the Occupied Territories have amounted to summary deportation and quiet transfer since the occupation began in 1967. It is impossible to estimate how many Palestinians have been effectively transferred over this period. In some villages, for example people will tell that the actual population is 3,000 to 4,000, but that 1,500 or 2,000 are outside and unable to return. It is impossible to know how much migration was actually voluntary, how much by administrative fiat, and how much because conditions have been made so unpromising that people decided to live elsewhere.
Various bodies, Palestinian and Israeli, are working on the subject of residency and family reunification. Some of these focus on the gathering and dissemination of information. Others provide help, support, or arrange legal counsel for the afflicted families themselves. Still others organize public protest. Below is a list of the main organizations working on the subject:
Al Haq/Law in the Service of Man: A Palestinian organization which deals with the range of problems concerning family reunification and the right of return of residents of the Occupied Territories who were expelled or who are not granted a permit to return to the area. They have published a booklet on the subject. Al Haq has a regular reception day for those harmed by Israel’s residency policy, providing help and legal and administrative counsel.
On the legal level: Recently, two sets of appeals were presented to the High Court. The first, initiated by “Hotline in Defense of the Individual”, represented by Attorney Andre Rosenthal, deals with the case of about 30 women and children who married Palestinians in Kuwait. When, due to the Gulf war, their husbands wanted to return to the Occupied Territories, they discovered that their wives were prevented from joining them: they are granted only short term visitors’ permits and the husbands’ families have to sign a NIS 5,000 guarantee.
The second appeal, initiated by the Association for Civil Rights in Israel (ACRI), focuses on cases concerning families who, according to ACRI, should be included in the guarantee given by the state’s Attorney to the High Court in 1990, but who are again threatened by expulsion or prevented from returning to the Territories
While international public opinion busies itself with the regional peace process, attentively following the developments in the diplomatic arena, the Israeli government is undertaking one of the most far-reaching attacks against the Palestinian people’s right of residence in the West Bank and Gaza Strip.
One the one hand, confiscations of lands and water sources continue at an accelerated pace, on the other, the authorities continue to further restrict the right of Palestinians and their families to reside in the Occupied Territories. This second aspect is less known than the issues of land confiscation and the establishment of settlements; however it can be seen- perhaps more than any other issue - as a model containing all the elements of Israeli government policy which refuses even to accept this people’s simple existence in its homeland.
Réfugiés palestiniens et les déplacés internes (IDP)
Centre d’éducation sur la Nakba en Cours
Mobilisation et Intervention
