العربية
HE
العربية
HE
On July 10, 2024, at the height of the war in Gaza, the K. family's home in the Gaza Strip was bombed, killing three members of the household: the mother, the father, and one of their children. Six of the children survived the attack and were left orphaned, four of them minors. The mother, who was killed in the bombardment, was an Israeli citizen who had married a Gaza resident and lived permanently in the Strip under renewable military permits. Under Israeli law, all eight of her children were entitled to legal status in Israel by virtue of birth, as they were born to an Israeli citizen. However, only the eldest daughter, F., had actually been registered in the Israeli Population Registry and granted Israeli citizenship.
Following the bombardment, F. sought to bring her six surviving siblings out of Gaza and into Israel to ensure their safety. Only two years later, on July 8, 2026, was their departure from Gaza finally coordinated. The cost of the authorities' delays was immense. For two years, the six siblings remained alone in a war zone, orphaned and living in severe poverty and hunger. For them, every delay in the legal proceedings could have meant the difference between life and death.
The K. family is one of hundreds of families classified under Israeli military procedures as a "divided family", a family in which one spouse is a Gaza resident and the other is an Israeli citizen. Parents in such families face an impossible choice: either live separately from their children or relocate permanently to Gaza, where the Israeli spouse may remain only under military permits issued by the Israeli District Coordination Office (DCO), which must be renewed every few months. The K. family chose the latter option.
The first petition – proving the children's identity
On July 16, 2024, HaMoked contacted the Population and Immigration Authority and the Coordinator of Government Activities in the Territories (COGAT) on behalf of F., requesting the urgent coordination of her siblings' departure from Gaza. Several weeks later, on August 7, 2024, HaMoked received a response stating that the six siblings would not be allowed to enter Israel because they were not registered in the Israeli Population Registry as the children of their deceased mother. According to the authorities, they would first have to undergo genetic testing in Gaza to prove the family connection.
HaMoked accepted the requirement for genetic testing but argued that the decision to require the test to be conducted inside Gaza was manifestly unreasonable. First, following the war, Gaza's healthcare system collapsed, leaving even the most basic medical services unavailable. Second, conducting the test in Gaza would force the six surviving siblings to remain in a war zone for many additional months, exposing them to an immediate and serious risk to their lives.
HaMoked relied on a framework established following Wahidi et al. v. Director General of the Population and Immigration Authority et al. (Administrative Petition 58928-12-23), commonly referred to as the "Wahidi Framework." Under this arrangement, where an unregistered child seeks recognition, the family deposits NIS 10,000 as a guarantee. Following the deposit, the children may leave Gaza and enter Israel, provided they undergo genetic testing upon entry into Israel. Once the genetic test confirms that they are the children of the Israeli mother, the guarantee is returned, and the children can be registered as Israeli citizens. However, this framework was not applied in the K. family's case.
After no response was received from the authorities, on October 23, 2024, HaMoked filed an administrative petition seeking permission for the six children of the deceased mother to enter Israel for the purpose of undergoing the genetic test and to remain in Israel until the results were received. In response, the State argued that the agreement reached in the Wahidi case had been made under exceptional circumstances and ex gratia. Following a court hearing, the parties reached a compromise whereby the genetic testing would be conducted at the Kerem Shalom Crossing in coordination with COGAT and the Population and Immigration Authority. However, when HaMoked subsequently sought to coordinate the testing, it encountered prolonged delays and a lack of response from the authorities.
The second petition – delays and foot-dragging by the authorities
Subsequently, HaMoked filed a second petition on September 11, 2025, almost a year after the first petition, seeking the urgent coordination of the genetic testing and requesting that the six children be allowed to enter Israel pending the test results. Since the first petition had been filed, the temporary ceasefire had ended, significantly increasing the danger of remaining in Gaza. Although the State refused to allow the children to enter Israel while awaiting the results, it agreed to conduct the genetic testing at the Kerem Shalom Crossing, which was coordinated shortly thereafter. In January 2026, the hospital confirmed that the six siblings and their eldest sister were biological siblings sharing the same mother, an Israeli citizen.
This finding was subsequently affirmed in a judgment issued by the Nazareth Family Court on February 11, 2026. Five months later, on July 8, 2026, the siblings finally left the Gaza Strip and entered Israel, where they were reunited with their eldest sister after years of separation.
The "divided families" procedure – violating the right to family life
Despite this successful outcome, the case illustrates one of the most serious flaws in Israel's "divided families" procedure: the separation it creates between parents and their children. Under the procedure, children in "divided families" may remain with their family members in Gaza only until they reach the age of 18. Upon reaching adulthood, they are required to leave the Strip and separate from their family and the life they have always known. They may return only in exceptional humanitarian circumstances.
To avoid being separated from their children when they turn 18, some parents choose not to register them in the Israeli Population Registry. Yet in many cases, Israeli citizenship is essential to protecting these families. As the K. family's case demonstrates, the failure to register the children in the Israeli Population Registry had profound consequences. Despite repeated petitions by HaMoked and other human rights organizations to the High Court of Justice, the policy of separating children from their parents under the "divided families" procedure remains in force.
