BackgroundAt the age of two, a Palestinian infant from East Jerusalem was abandoned by her mother. Her father, an Israeli resident, who could not take care of her and her sister, placed the sisters at an orphanage in East Jerusalem. In 1975, when the girl turned 15, her family took her out of the orphanage and married her to a Jordanian citizen. The girl, who had moved to Jordan, was subjected to oppression, humiliation and abuse at the hands of her husband and his family, that also took away her Jordanian passport and her Israeli laissez passer (return visa) with which she had entered Jordan, and thereby prevented her from going back. Her abusive husband used to stay away from their home, leaving her and their two children without means of support.
In April 1996, the woman escaped from Jordan. She entered into Israel using a tourist visa (B/2) and went back to the only place in which she felt safe: the orphanage in East Jerusalem. She made huge efforts to rebuild her life, started working at the orphanage, and after arranging her divorce, she married a Palestinian man, resident of Israel. The couple went to live in the East Jerusalem neighborhood of A-Tur, and a few years later, they had a son.
In 2004, when she applied to the interior ministry to have her identity card renewed, she was informed that
back in 1993, the interior ministry had decided to revoke her status in Israel.
The status reinstatement requestIn April 2006, the woman requested the interior ministry to reinstate her status. In June of that year, a hearing was held on her case, but no response followed. Three years later, the woman contacted HaMoked. In November 2009, HaMoked submitted a
new application to the interior ministry, requesting that the woman be given back her status in Israel. HaMoked argued, inter alia, that the woman's status had been illegally revoked to begin with, considering that she had not relocated and resided in Jordan of her own free will, and that she had kept her ties with Israel while there. It was also claimed that undoubtedly, since her escape from Jordan, the woman's center of life was East Jerusalem–which had always been her only home–where she had built her life anew and formed her new family. A month later, the interior minister rejected the request out of hand,
only now notifying for the first time that her initial request had already been rejected in July 2006, following the hearing. The interior ministry did not bother to respond to HaMoked's new request.
Transfer to the interministerial committeeIn February 2010, HaMoked filed an
administrative appeal against the interior ministry's refusal to reinstate the status, wherein it asserted that such an outright rejection based on a refusal notice which had never been delivered was unreasonable. Two months later, the interior ministry informed that the woman's case would be transferred to the
interministerial committee on humanitarian affairs. Six months later, after an additional hearing took place in May 2010, the interior ministry notified that no humanitarian grounds had been found warranting the request's handling by the interministerial committee (!). However,
the interior ministry allowed the woman to submit additional documents to support her humanitarian claims.
In November 2010, HaMoked sent an additional letter to the interior ministry, detailing the tragic events of the woman's life, accompanied by relevant documents.
Another year elapsed without any decision. In January 2012,
HaMoked filed an administrative appeal against the committee's lack of response. HaMoked reasserted that the woman's humanitarian circumstances should be taken into consideration and that by its protracted delays in handling the woman's case, the interior ministry was leaving her in an impossible situation, without status or social security rights.
Conclusion Following the appeal, the interior ministry informed that the woman's case would be heard by the inter-ministerial committee in February. It took three more months for the interior ministry to notify, on May 24, 2012, that the woman would receive a residency and work visa (B/1 visa) for one year, after which, she could apply for temporary status in Israel (A/5 visa).
Eight years after her initial application to have her status reinstated, the woman received a vise (although only a tourist visa), which allows her to continue living in East Jerusalem. But in order to receive social support from the state, she will have to wait another year.
