العربية
HE
العربية
HE
A young woman from the West Bank got married in 2006 and moved to live with her husband in the Gaza Strip. Because of the severe restrictions Israel imposes on travel between the West Bank and the Gaza Strip, she has not visited her parents in the West Bank since that time. On December 22, 2013, HaMoked contacted the military, requesting the woman be permitted to enter the West Bank, accompanied by her two children, to visit her mother who was suffering from advanced stage cancer.
On January 1, 2014, the public liaison officer at the Gaza District Coordination Office told HaMoked that the request had not been processed because the medical document bore the stamp "State of Palestine". The officer further stated that the State of Israel did not recognize a Palestinian state and therefore the military would not process the obviously humanitarian application - because of the stamp on the medical document (!). On January 3, 2014, Haaretz newspaper published a story about the military's outrageous conduct in this case, and the military, unsurprisingly, notified HaMoked that processing of the application had resumed.
On January 15, 2014, the military finally approved the young woman's entry and she went to visit her sick mother.
HaMoked continues to monitor, with concern, the belligerent manner in which the military approaches humanitarian applications by Palestinians. The military's conduct in this case was particularly egregious, choosing to wage a political battle at the expense of one woman, desperately waiting for permission to visit her dying mother.
