Center for the Defence of the Individual - Following HaMoked's petition, a Palestinian will have surgery in a hospital in Israel: although never arrested, the man has been banned from traveling abroad by the military for years on "security grounds" and unable to have the necessary procedure in Jordan
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חזרה לעמוד הקודם
02.06.2011

Following HaMoked's petition, a Palestinian will have surgery in a hospital in Israel: although never arrested, the man has been banned from traveling abroad by the military for years on "security grounds" and unable to have the necessary procedure in Jordan

A construction supervisor from Hebron has been suffering from pain radiating from his hip joint along his back and leg for years. In 2008, he had hip joint surgery in a Hebron hospital. Several months later, following a traffic accident injury, he had another complex operation in an East Jerusalem hospital, that included a hip joint replacement. The operation was unsuccessful, and he has since had difficulty walking and has been suffering from acute pain, which forced him to stop working. He was recently told by his physicians that in order to avoid permanent disability he must urgently have another hip-joint replacement surgery in the Al-Israa Hospital in Jordan, which specializes in such procedures.  

For many years he had no trouble traveling abroad. In 2007, however, when he arrived at the Allenby Bridge border crossing, on his way to Jordan to visit his daughter, he was surprised to find he was precluded from traveling abroad by the military. When he approached the Hebron District Coordination Office to find out the reason for the preclusion, an operative of the Israel Security Agency (ISA) tried to coerce him to collaborate with Israeli security forces, telling him he must come for weekly meetings with him, if he wished to meet his daughter. The man - who had never been arrested - refused to become an ISA collaborator, and ever since, the military has been preventing him from traveling abroad on "security grounds".  

In the hope that the military would allow him to travel to Jordan for his urgent surgery, he filed an objection against the travel ban, but was denied. On February 17, 2011, HaMoked petitioned the High Court of Justice (HCJ) to order the military to allow the man to leave for Jordan for his operation. In the petition, HaMoked argued that a sweeping travel ban of unlimited duration, as in the present case, infringes on the petitioner's liberty, dignity, and his rights to freedom of movement, health, and access to medical care, all of them part of the norms of international customary law, and  firmly established in Israeli law.  

In its response, the state argued that the petitioner's travel abroad would be "utilized to promote terrorism" and that the health coordinator in the civil administrator – who is not a physician – had determined that although both previous operations failed, there was no impediment to continuing medical treatment and supervision in the West Bank. In the hearing, the justices suggested the petitioner would be allowed to have the operation in Israel. Although his insurance does not cover medical procedures in Israel, in order that his surgery would not be further delayed, HaMoked accepted the offer, and on May 29, 2011, the petition was deleted.   

The question remaining is why Israel now allows into its borders, a person, whom it has for years been preventing from travel abroad on "security grounds", for allegedly promoting terrorism? Or is it in fact his refusal to collaborate with the ISA, the essence of these "security grounds"? 

HaMoked referred the man to Physicians for Human Rights – Israel, to help arrange his operation in a hospital in Israel.

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