On January 22, 2014, HaMoked contacted the military to request that a Palestinian woman from the Gaza Strip be allowed to travel, with her mother and her sister, from Gaza to the West Bank, to attend her own wedding with a West Bank man. On February 25, 2014, the military replied that the request had been denied for "failing to meet the criteria". This was an odd response, given that one of the express criteria set in military protocols for passage from Gaza to the West Bank is the need to attend a wedding of an immediate relative. In a phone conversation with an officer at the Gaza District Coordination Office, HaMoked was told that the refusal was based on the concern that the applicant might relocate to the West bank, given that she had requested to participate in her own wedding in the West Bank rather than a relative's wedding.
On March 6, 2014,
HaMoked petitioned the High Court of Justice (HCJ) to instruct the military to promptly allow the three women to travel to the West Bank, as the wedding was set for a week and a half later. HaMoked asserted that the refusal to permit passage violated the women's rights to family life and freedom of movement.
In its response, the state claimed that there was concern that the woman was planning to relocate to the West Bank, and was using the wedding as ploy. The state added that the woman was in fact claiming a non-existent right – the right to choose the location of her wedding.
The court accepted the state's position, and decided to delete the petition. The court ruled that if the woman wished to live with her husband, the couple should decide where they want to live, and act accordingly. The court added that if the couple wished to live together in the West Bank, they would have to initiate a "settlement" procedure as per military protocols; but the couple's decision to hold the wedding in the West Bank when the bride had no a permit to travel from Gaza to the West Bank, had been ill-advised.
HaMoked considers the court's ruling to be disingenuous and misleading. Over the years, Israel has been implementing a stern policy aimed at separating the Gaza Strip from the West Bank; thus, it allows passage in one direction only – to Gaza, and sets it as a prerequisite for exercising the right to family life, and only provided that the West Bank resident has signed a pledge never to move back to the West Bank. Permits to travel from Gaza to the West Bank are rarely issued and are subject to highly restrictive criteria. The "settlement" procedure to which the court has referred the couple, expressly stipulates that family ties are not a valid criteria for relocating to the West Bank. So it would seem that the option of choosing where they wish to live, as the court suggested to the couple, does not exist in practice.
