Center for the Defence of the Individual - Responding to a request from HaMoked, the OC Southern Command announced that he will not be granting permission to Israelis to visit their relatives in the Gaza Strip at the upcoming festivals of Christmas and Id al-Adha: As is the case with each approaching festival, the blanket refusal is based on the vague argument of “security grounds.”
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חזרה לעמוד הקודם
12.12.2007

Responding to a request from HaMoked, the OC Southern Command announced that he will not be granting permission to Israelis to visit their relatives in the Gaza Strip at the upcoming festivals of Christmas and Id al-Adha: As is the case with each approaching festival, the blanket refusal is based on the vague argument of “security grounds.”

On 26 November 2007, HaMoked contacted OC Southern Command and demanded that Israelis whose relatives live in the Gaza Strip be permitted to enter and stay in the area at festival time. HaMoked emphasized the fact that the military imposes separation on these families. Israel currently prohibits Palestinians living in the Gaza Strip from entering Israel, and has also imposed an almost total prohibition against entry into the Gaza Strip by Israeli citizens and residents. The only occasion on which relatives can meet is at the Muslim or Christian festivals, which are traditionally celebrated together by the whole family. In the past the military promised in court that Israelis would be permitted to enter the Gaza Strip for the festivals together with their partners and children under the age of eighteen, unless there were specific and individual security grounds for preventing this.

Following the refusal by the military to permit visits at Id al-Fitr in September 2007, HaMoked demanded that the military make preparations in order to permit relatives to enter the Gaza Strip from the day before the upcoming festival, and not merely on the day of the festival itself.

On 10 December 2007, however, HaMoked received a reply from the military stating that Israelis would not be granted entry permits enabling them to spend the festival with their relatives in the Gaza Strip. The military quoted “security grounds” as the justification for this grave injury to the right to a family life, adding that (as required by its commitment to the High Court of Justice) it undertakes “periodic evaluations of the situation in order to examine the issue.” The military further noted that Israelis would be permitted to enter the Gaza Strip in exceptional humanitarian cases.

Read the military’s response dated 10 December 2007 (Hebrew)

Read HaMoked’s request dated 26 November 2007 (Hebrew)

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