For years Israel refused to update in the population registry the address of two youths born in the Gaza Strip and living in the West Bank from infancy, and treated them as “illegal aliens” at their own home. Until a few years ago,
Israel used to deport people who lived in the West Bank to Gaza if they were listed with a Gaza address in their ID card or in the civil administration computer records – a practice which was stopped following
HaMoked’s intervention.
In view of the state’s insistence that the solution in the youths’ case existed in the seven-year-long “West Bank settlement procedure” – throughout which they would have to meet the requirements for receiving permits of stay in the West Bank – the High Court of Justice (HCJ) advised the state, in the framework of
HaMoked’s petitions, to drop the demand for stay permits, with the complex bureaucracy it entailed, and update the youths’ address in the population registry to correspond to reality, to the West Bank, provided there was no security or criminal preclusion to doing so.
On January 17, 2016, the
state announced that “as an exception” and “beyond legal obligation” it would exempt the two youths “from the duty to act to obtain renewable stay permits in the Judea and Samaria Area and the duty of carrying the permits, and that these will be issued independent of their application for such and logged in the civil administration’s systems”. The state also notified it would shorten the youths’ “settlement procedure” to three years from the applications’ approval date – that is, on December 16, 2017 – after which, in the absence of a security or criminal preclusion, their addresses would be updated to the West Bank.
Given that the youths’ case was already three and a half years into the process,
HaMoked requested the state to have the addresses changed immediately. Once the state refused to do so, HaMoked asked the HCJ on May 11, 2016 to issue an order nisi directing the state to justify its refusal to update the addresses promptly.
Following the court’s recommendation, in the hearing held on November 24, 2016, the
state announced that in the absence of a security or criminal preclusion, the two youths’ addresses would be updated on June 16, 2017. The arrangement was given the force of a judgment.
