Center for the Defence of the Individual - For years a Palestinian widower’s humanitarian application remained unanswered: following HaMoked’s petition, the Minister of Interior has decided to give him a stay permit allowing him to remain living in the city legally with his two underage children
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חזרה לעמוד הקודם
26.11.2017

For years a Palestinian widower’s humanitarian application remained unanswered: following HaMoked’s petition, the Minister of Interior has decided to give him a stay permit allowing him to remain living in the city legally with his two underage children

In 1999, a Palestinian man from the West Bank married a woman resident of East Jerusalem and moved to live with her in the city. The couple had two children. The boy is registered as a permanent resident of East Jerusalem, but the girl remains stateless because the mother died of cancer in 2005, before she managed to arrange her daughter’s registration, as well as the father’s status. Following his wife’s untimely death, the father continued raising their two small children in East Jerusalem, and he has been living there continuously for the past 18 years.

The father’s attempts over the years to arrange the status of his daughter as well as his own were to no avail. His application to the Minister of Interior’s advisory committee on granting status in humanitarian cases, filed shortly after his wife died, remained unanswered, and it ultimately turned out the application had been shelved on the baseless ground that he was uncooperative.

Another humanitarian application for a stay permit was filed on his behalf in 2013, but was considered by the humanitarian committee only in 2016. And many more months passed without any decision in his case. This, despite the fact that under the Citizenship and Entry into Israel Law, the Minister of Interior must decide on such humanitarian applications within six months after all necessary documents have been filed.

As no response arrived for four years from the time the repeat application was filed, HaMoked petitioned the High Court of Justice (HCJ) on the father’s behalf on July 6, 2017, requesting the court to compel the Minister of Interior to arrange the man’s status in Israel.

On October 31, before the petition was heard by the court, the state announced that the Minister of Interior had decided, at the committee’s recommendation, to give the father a permit of stay in Israel. Thereupon, the petition was deleted at the parties’ request.

HaMoked will continue acting to have the daughter duly registered as an Israeli resident.

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