Human Rights Action Project, Birzeit University, P.O. Box 14, Birzeit, West Bank, via Israel
Tel: +972-2-998-2059 Fax: +972-2-995-7656 E-mail address: hrap@admin.birzeit.edu
Since Birzeit, the oldest Palestinian university, began to offer first degree courses in 1974, Palestinian educators have striven to give equal access to education to all sectors of Palestinian youth - men and women from all parts of the Occupied Territories and Israel, refugees, rich and poor alike. As universities developed, they performed a vital function in the integration of Palestinian society, allowing dialogue between different political and social groups, encouraging tolerance, mutual respect and the opportunity to practice democratic principles in student elections.
The problems faced by Palestinian students, faculty and staff from the Gaza Strip who study, teach and work in Palestinian higher education in the Israeli-occupied West Bank are not new. Gazan students in particular have faced special problems. In recent years they have found themselves impeded in pursuing their education by an arbitrary permit system, the violation of which can result in the imposition of large fines, harassment, detention and, in some cases, torture.
Six of the eight universities in the Occupied Territories are located in the West Bank which has a population of 1.6 million, as opposed to Gaza's 880,000.[footnote 1] 8,000 high school students graduate each year in Gaza. With many academic courses only available in the West Bank, a capacity of 3,840 students in the Islamic University of Gaza,[footnote 2] 2,407 students in Al-Ahzer University[footnote 3], the Strip's only two universities, and 763 distance learning students registered in the Gaza region of the Al-Quds Open University[footnote 4], the need to look outside Gaza for higher education is a necessity rather than a luxury. Consequently, around 1,300 Palestinians from Gaza study in West Bank institutions, 856 in the six universities [footnote 5].
In March 1993, a closure was imposed on the Occupied Territories by Israel, denying Palestinians with West Bank or Gaza identity cards access to Jerusalem and to any areas apart from their own.
With the 13 September 1993 signing of the Declaration of Principles on Interim Self-Government Arrangements[footnote 6] in Washington D.C., many hoped that snowballing political developments would ease travel restrictions for the 1,300 Gazan students studying in the West Bank higher education institutions. Over a year later, it is clear that Israeli restrictions have not improved but worsened.
The permit system that formed the mechanism of the March 1993 closure was extended and consolidated following the massacre at the Al-Haram Al-Ibrahimi Mosque in Hebron on 25 February 1994. Palestinians continue to be denied free access to Jerusalem, as well as facing severe restrictions on movement between the West Bank and Gaza Strip.
This report aims to provide a detailed introduction to the problems faced by Gazan students. It examines the forces that operate to lock them out of education and the often catastrophic effects of these forces. The report illustrates the processes discussed with case studies and statistical evidence. Although the report concentrates on Gazan students at Birzeit, the experience of other Palestinian institutions in the West Bank has been parallel. Two appendices supplement the report including examples of the travel documents and permits issued to Gazan students, and correspondence with Israeli and foreign government representatives.
There are sections on the attitudes of those perpetuating the discriminatory permit system, the Israeli military government in the Occupied Territories, and their reaction to legal challenges in the Israeli High Court of Justice. International reactions to this issue are examined in a case study of the Israeli misinformation designed to draw attention away from the continuing violation of the human rights and academic freedom of students from Gaza, despite the signing of the Declaration of Principles and the Gaza-Jericho Autonomy Agreement [footnote 7] by Israel and the Palestine Liberation Organisation in Cairo on 4 May 1994.
The report concludes with a call for action from the international community on behalf of the 1,300 Gazan students studying in West Bank institutions. We hope it will be heard.
The Human Rights Action Project (HRAP) was established at Birzeit University in 1977 to monitor the growing human rights violations against Birzeit students and staff by the Israeli military authorities. It is out of the day-to-day monitoring of the situation and from experience in dealing with the Israeli military court and permit systems that this report has been compiled.
The HRAP is particularly concerned by statements made by Israeli and foreign government spokespersons during the last year that have suggested that the problems faced by Gazan students have been resolved. The reality of their experience tells a rather different story.
This report could not have been written without the extensive work done on the Gaza student issue by Emma Naughton, who co-ordinated the HRAP between 1992 and 1994.
The report was published with financial assistance from World Vision Jerusalem and its director Bill Warnock, who have been supportive of HRAP. Our thanks to them.
Special thanks are also due to Palestinian lawyer Elia Theodory who has been attached to HRAP since March 1993, accompanying students to military court hearings as their defence counsel and undertaking much of the day-to-day work. Also to three Israeli lawyers, Leah Tsemel, André Rosenthal and Tamar Peleg, who have done much work on the issue, taking cases to the Israeli High Court of Justice on a number of occasions. Many thanks also to Penny Johnson and Catherine Grosso from the HRAP for editing and helping to collect material for this report, and Adli Dana from the Public Relations Office at Birzeit University for work undertaken on this issue, including language translations for this report. Invaluable assistance has been given by two Palestinian human rights organisations in particular, Mustafa Mar'i from Al-Haq, and Raji Sourani and Bernard Harborne from the Gaza Centre for Rights and Law. Thanks also to Brian Jones and Hanan Elmasu for help with the appendices of this report.
Thanks to British Members of Parliament Mike Watson, Bob Parry, Dennis Canavan, and Ron Davies, who have repeatedly raised this issue with both British and Israeli government representatives. Thanks finally to Friends of Birzeit University in London who have continued to campaign on this issue, despite some discouraging results, and Eddie Jenkinson, FoBZU Co-ordinator at the time of writing, who provided some of the source material for this report.
Since November 1967, the West Bank and Gaza Strip have been recognised by the international community to be territories illegally occupied by the State of Israel [footnote 8]. The Israeli military authorities who are responsible under international law for the residents of these territories, have treated the two areas as separate administrative units to some extent.
Israeli Military Order No. 5 of 1972 (amended), legislates for a general entry permit for residents of the "administered territories" (i.e. Occupied Territories). Article 2 (B) of this order stipulates that;
"Any resident of the administered territory who enters the area may not be.... a student at any educational institution without an individual permit that is issued in writing."
This results in a confusing three-tier process for acquiring permission to study in the West Bank. At present, students wishing to leave Gaza to study must first be in possession of a valid magnetic identity card [footnote 9]. A second permit is necessary to pass through Israel on the way from Gaza to the West Bank, and a third permit is needed to remain in the West Bank. The third permit, granted at the nearest office of the Civil Administration [footnote 10] in the West Bank, can theoretically be renewed without having to return to Gaza. In practice, the issuing of renewals is often unpredictable. The second of the three permits, for travel through Israel, is often valid for one or two days. As a result, many students have had to return to Gaza to begin the process again when their request for residence in the West Bank is turned down.
The lengthy application procedures include a security check by the Israeli General Security Services (GSS) [footnote 11] who have the power to reject any application without explanation. Many applications from students are rejected on the basis of information supplied by the GSS. This information cannot be verified by the applicant as it is deemed 'confidential' and cannot be contested as there is no right of appeal. Students may also be asked to supply 'security information' about political activities and individual activists on their campus by the GSS before being granted a permit.
According to Albert Aghazarian, Director of Public Relations at Birzeit University, the three-tier process has required that a student spends approximately 22 hours waiting in line at various Israeli Civil Administration offices. As most permits are issued only for a period of three months, this becomes a very time consuming and ultimately dehumanising process. Since the handover of partial responsibility to the PNA, this time has been reduced by about one-third.
The right to education has become a privilege granted by the Israeli military authorities after a long application procedure. This is something that Israel has no right to do under international law.
This permit system is reminiscent of the excesses of old-South African Bantustan segregation. Israeli citizens and settlers are allowed freedom of movement between the West Bank and Gaza Strip. Discrimination based on ethnicity, in granting travel permission and access to education, is prohibited under international law. Articles 13 and 26 of The Universal Declaration of Human Rights, to which Israel is a signatory, state that;
"Everyone should have the right to freedom of movement and residence within the borders of each state.... Everyone should have the right to education." [footnote 12]
Similarly, Article 13 (1) of the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights of 1966, which Israel has also signed, stipulates that;
"The States Parties to the present Covenant recognise the right of everyone to education."
One Birzeit student, applying for a permit to travel from Gaza to the West Bank in 1992, was bluntly told by a soldier in the Gaza office of the Civil Administration, "There is no permission for education."
Residence permits for the West Bank (permit #3 from previous section) are usually granted to Gazan students for a period of three months or less, requiring them to apply for numerous extensions from the Civil Administration. Renewal is not guaranteed and is often refused. At the beginning of the first semester [footnote 13] of the 1994/95 academic year, Birzeit University submitted a list of all Gazan students registered for the semester to the Palestinian National Authority in Gaza, who submitted the list to the Israeli authorities for approval. Four or five days later, on 19 October, approximately 80 of the 350 Gazan students at Birzeit University were granted 2-day permits to travel through Israel to the West Bank. For most of the students this represented a period that was already covered by existing residence permits from the summer sumester. On 20 October these permits and all others were invalidated by the Israeli closure of the Occupied Territories [footnote 14], after the bombing of a bus in Tel Aviv.
Inconsistencies in the permit system are illustrated regularly in cases where students who have had numerous applications refused on 'security grounds' suddenly find themselves issued with a permit. Permission to travel to university is often denied to students without a history of anything that could be considered a 'security offence'. In a report submitted to the Geneva-based United Nations Commission on Human Rights in January 1994, the HRAP noted that engineering student Mohammed Abu Halib had been refused a permit repeatedly on the basis that he posed a security risk. Mohammed, who suffers from diabetes and a kidney condition, has never been imprisoned or charged with any offence. Furthermore, none of his family members were 'wanted' or serving prison sentences.
A significant number of students have had their Gazan magnetic identity cards (permit #1 from previous section) confiscated for renewable periods of six months, effectively destroying their ability to pursue education. In July 1993 and January 1994, HRAP reported, "waves of magnetic card confiscations" by soldiers guarding the border between Gaza and Israel. During both periods, students were trying to return to the university after their vacation. Permits and magnetic identity cards that the Israeli Civil Administration has issued are often confiscated by Israeli soldiers and GSS officers. Similarly, permit renewals are often denied by the same Civil Administration that granted the initial permission, a case of "what one hand gives, the other takes away". The confiscation of permits and magnetic identity cards leaves students with a difficult choice between returning to Gaza in order to begin the application process all over again and remaining in the West Bank and risking imprisonment or fines.
Israel's lack of accountability to the structural flaws and inconsistencies in the permit system has been demonstrated at all levels of the military authorities. In the week of 4 May 1994, when Israel and the Palestinian Liberation Organisation signed the Cairo Agreement, Israeli prime minister and defence minister Yitzhak Rabin was required by a Birzeit University-initiated High Court of Justice hearing to state clearly Israel's policy toward Gazan students studying in the West Bank. He chose to avoid the issue, claiming that any statement given could 'prejudice current developments in the peace process'. The High Court of Justice agreed to postpone the hearing. Seven months later, Birzeit still has not received a statement of policy.
When the prime minister of any country can ignore such a request from the highest court in the land, one must ask on what basis the rule of law is operating in that country.
A similar display of unaccountability was demonstrated in the case of Birzeit student Emad An-Natour, a first-year student in the College of Arts. Emad had his magnetic identity card confiscated in 1993 and, along with several other Birzeit students, took his case to the Israeli High Court. The court decreed the return of their cards.
On 24 November 1994, he went to renew this card at the Civil Administration in Gaza, where it was confiscated again. Emad showed the Israeli officials documentation from the high court but was told, "It isn't recorded on our computer files." The lack of accountability by administrative officials to a high court decision does not inspire confidence in the system of law among Gazan students thinking of contesting a magnetic identity card confiscation or a permit refusal [footnote 16].
Palestinian human rights and legal organisation, Al-Haq, raised the issue of denial of permits with the office of Israeli defence minister Yitzhak Rabin in May 1993, following a wave of arrests of Gazan students for 'permit violations'. The office responded with an official statement relating to conditions determining the issuing of permits;
"Students who approached the Civil Administration offices and had their applications approved after the necessary checks, including a security one, were issued with the requested permits for their study in the West Bank, as well as for their movement between the two areas to visit their families, etc.
Noting that the cited exception to the granting of permits was said to be "security", Al-Haq monitored the behaviour of Israeli Civil Administration offices following this response and concluded that;
"The relevant Israeli executive authorities did not heed the official policy stated in the response of the Ministry of Defence. West Bank Civil Administrations rejected permit renewal requests."
Supposing that the Civil Administration would not grant an initial permit to it considered a "security risk", Al-Haq argues that the refusal to renew these permits cannot be justified on security grounds [footnote 17]. In a letter to Israeli defence minister Yitzhak Rabin on 9 July 1994, raising specific examples of this infringement of stated Israeli government policy, Al-Haq concluded that a large part of the problem with the permit system rested in its arbitrary nature;
"Based on our documentation, Al-Haq believes that the denial of permits for the persons listed below is arbitrary and/or illegal. The denial of permits has resulted in a denial of fundamental rights to our clients and comes as a result of procedures and rules applied in bad faith. Therefore, we strongly urge you to remedy the specific problems our clients face and to address the structural faults of the permit system." [footnote 18]
The Gaza Strip is often subjected to total 'closure' or 'sealing' by the Israeli military authorities, usually in the wake of attacks on Israeli citizens by individual Palestinians from Gaza, and occasionally when it is mistakenly assumed that the attacks have been carried out by Gazans [footnote 19]. Punishing an entire people for the actions of individuals is prohibited under international law as'collective punishment'. The Hague Regulations state that;
"No general penalty, pecuniary or otherwise, shall be inflicted upon the population on account of the acts of individuals for which they cannot be regarded as jointly and severally responsible."
Similarly, the Fourth Geneva Convention states that;
"Collective penalties and likewise all measures of intimidation or of terrorism are prohibited." [footnote 20]
Since 24 May 1992, in the aftermath of the killing of an Israeli teenager in Bat Yam (near Tel Aviv inside Israel), there have been severe restrictions on exit from the Gaza Strip. Males younger than 25 years of age in particular (an age bracket that includes most university students), were placed under a blanket restriction where permits were only granted in exceptional cases.
Dr. Gabi Baramki, then Birzeit University's acting-President [footnote 21], held a press conference on 19 June 1992 and issued a "Missing Persons Alert" to publicise the fact that 280 Gazan students enrolled at Birzeit had "disappeared" from the university, prevented by the travel restrictions from completing their courses and final exams.
The same situation arose again in late March 1993 after a series of attacks on Israelis by individual Palestinians. The Gaza Strip, Jerusalem, and the northern and southern parts of the West Bank were sealed off from each other by the Israeli military authorities, using 57 checkpoints [footnote 22]. This made it necessary for Palestinians to apply for permits to travel to other parts of the West Bank or Gaza Strip. Palestinians living in Jerusalem are categorised as "residents of Jerusalem" [footnote 23] and do not require permits, an example of the peculiarities raised by the Israeli occupation of the West Bank and Gaza. Those living in the West Bank are not considered Israeli citizens, rather "Jordanian" nationals, and those in Gaza have their nationality listed as "undefined" ("unclear" in the Hebrew text) [footnote 24] according to their Israeli-issued travel documents.
This sealing and dividing of the Occupied Territories had implications not just for Gazan students, staff and faculty at Birzeit University, but also for those living in the southern part of the West Bank. Residents of Hebron, Bethlehem and Abu Dis (a neighborhood of Jerusalem) had to apply for permits to travel through Jerusalem to get to the university, which lies about 26km north of the city. While it is still possible to travel from the south to the north without passing through Jerusalem, this doubles the travel time and cost and forces travellers to use a dangerous road known as Wadi El Nar ("The Valley of Fire"). There are checkpoints along this road that inspect, but do not turn back cars.
Of the 314 Gazan students registered at that time for the second semester of the 1992/93 academic year, 50 were unable to return to their studies for the whole semester and over 70 percent of male students from Gaza reported difficulties in obtaining permits to travel to the West Bank [footnote 25]. Each time there is a closure resulting in a blanket cancellation of all existing travel permission, the Civil Administration changes the colour of the permits, making all currently-held documents useless, even if the dates specified are still valid.
Most recently, the Israeli practice of sealing the Gaza Strip was demonstrated in October 1994. On 11 October, after the 9 October kidnapping of Israeli soldier Cpl. Nahshon Wachsman by Izzedin al-Qassam, the military wing of the Islamic Resistance Movement (HAMAS), Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin ordered a 100% closure of the Gaza Strip, "the assumption being that Wachsman is being held there" [footnote 26]. The closure was lifted after six days, on 17 October. Two days later, on 19 October, when an Izzedin al-Qassam suicide bomber targeted a municipal bus in Tel Aviv killing over 20 people, Prime Minister Rabin sealed-off the West Bank, and the Gaza Strip once again. By the beginning of December 1994, almost halfway through the first semester of the 1994/95 academic year, the closure had not been lifted for students from Gaza, leaving 350 of Birzeit's Gazan students stranded in the Strip. Yet, it had been discovered by Israel in late October that none of those responsible for the acts came from Gaza.
Between 7-10 December 1994, halfway through the semester, 269 Gazans from Birzeit University were granted permits to study. This number included most of the women students from Gaza and a percentage of the men. In a letter dated 13 December 1994, the Israeli Ministry of Defense discussed the details of this move in response to an intervention by Al-Haq, stating;
"In response to your letter dated 26 November 1994 (2022/94).
In spite of the latest closure, the Prime Minister and the Minister of Defense, Mr. Yitzhak Rabin, has recently allowed 200 students from Gaza to study at Bir-Zeit University in the region of Judea and Samaria [footnote 27] subject to the following conditions:
A. The Palestinian Authority will transfer to the Israeli authorities a list of 200 students studying at Bir-Zeit University.
B. The list will be checked from a security point of view.
C. The students will undertake before the Palestinian Authority to refrain from acts of terror and to support the peace process.
D. Further entry of students to Judea and Samaria is conditional, determined by the possible consequences of the entry of the present 200. [footnote 28]"
To link access to education to the holding of a particular political viewpoint is contrary to the sections of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights dealing with education and the freedom of movement. The policy also infringes on the right to freedom of thought and conscience, which includes the right of every person not to hold any opinion, and not to be compelled to declare his or her beliefs. Article 18 (1) of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights of 1966 (ICCPR) guarantees freedom of conscience, and Article 19 (1) states that;
"Everyone shall have the right to hold opinions without interference."
Israel is a signatory of the ICCPR. The violation of this right by Israel is additionally in contravention of the Cairo Agreement, article 14 of which states that;
"Israel and the Palestinian Authority shall exercise their powers and responsibilities, pursuant to this Agreement, with due regard to internationally accepted norms and principles of human rights and the rule of law."
This also has the potential to interfere with the democratic process that takes place in the university for student council elections. If students who openly disagree with the peace process are either barred from travelling to the university or afraid to speak openly lest they be deported, there are grave implications for the disenfranchisement of Gazan students and free speech.
Israel's announcement that the behaviour of the 200 students (269 in practice) was being monitored before permits would bgranted to the remaining 1,050 Gazans studying at Birzeit and other institutions in the West Bank is similarly shocking. To use these 200 students as 'guinea pigs' is unfair to both them and students at other institutions, and is a different and more subtle manifestation of collective punishment. Of the 856 Gazans studying at the six West Bank universities, available information indicates that approximately 600 of them are being denied their right to education. The President of An-Najah Student Council, for example, reported that none of the 409 Gazans registered at the university have received a permit by the end of December 1994 [footnote 29]. According to unconfirmed reports at the time of publishing this report in mid-January, around 100 of An-Najah's Gazan students may since have been granted permits, and some of the other universities reported permits being granted to some of their Gazan students. The Al-Quds Open University, based in Jerusalem, reported to HRAP on 17 January 1995 that none of its 8 Gazan students studying in the West Bank towns of Ramallah and Bethlehem had been granted permits. No other detailed information was available at the time of publishing.
In a letter to Al-Haq [footnote 30], dated 22 December 1994, Mr. Fraij Al-Khairi, Palestinian Head of the Joint Civil Affairs Co-operation and Co-ordination Committee, expressed the view that the Israeli authorities insist on making the right to education subject to negotiations and bargaining, describing the Israeli policy detailed above as "vague and misleading". Mr. Al-Khairi added that the Palestinian National Authority insists on enabling everyone to fulfill his or her right to education, but has been faced with Israel's rejection of this right. He stated that;
"...we insist that all the students have the right to go to their classes and that the right to education should be guaranteed to all human beings... the only side that prohibits this is the Israeli West Bank military command and the Ministry of Defence."
Semesters in Palestinian universities are usually approximately four months long. Students can suddenly find themselves without a permit three-quarters of the way through the semester when permits are not renewed or are cancelled by a closure of the Strip. If they return to Gaza they will have difficulty catching up on missed lectures and homework and the university will have difficulty rescheduling lectures and faculty teaching hours. Administrative difficulties are particularly exacerbated when students miss exams.
None of the 350 Gazan students enrolled for the first semester of Birzeit University's 1994/95 academic year received permits until 7 December, two months after the semester began. Permits were then granted only to 269 students. Many will not be able to complete the semester on time, as their course requirements include lecture attendance. This forced break from their studies and de facto extension of their degree course represents an unhealthy interruption to their academic career.
Although Birzeit's degree courses are scheduled to take four years, some students have taken up to nine years to complete their degrees due to prolonged Israeli closures of the university during the Intifada, the denial of travel permission, deportations, detentions, and the economic difficulties directly resulting from these measures. Gazan students have tended to suffer more as a consequence of these measures due to geographic isolation.
During Christian and Muslim festivals, when students would normally return home to be with their families, many stay at the university for fear of not being able to return to their studies. At the time of the 'Id Al-Adha Islamic holiday in early June 1992, Alia, a Birzeit third-year mathematics student commented that;
"Many students wanted to go home for the holiday to be with their families, but were afraid they could not return. Our situation is stressful. Every day we fear 'deportation' back to Gaza. [footnote 31]"
Some families literally have been divided by the discriminatory permit system. In a recent case, 32-year-old Adli Sharif, an employee in Birzeit's Department of Electrical Engineering, has been separated from his wife and his six-month-old baby daughter since the late summer of 1994. Adli is from Gaza while his wife is a West Bank resident who studies Sociology at Birzeit. Despite repeated applications to their respective Civil Administration offices by both of them, neither had been granted a permit to visit each other by the beginning of December. Albert Aghazarian, Director of Public Relations at Birzeit University, commented that;
"The only way this family can be together is by breaking the Occupier's law."
Training and community-oriented outreach programmes run by the university have also suffered. Emad Farraj, a West Bank resident and technician in the Centre for Environmental and Occupational Health Sciences at Birzeit, is responsible for giving 'in-service' training courses to Palestinian farmers in the Jordan Valley and Gaza Strip on the safe use of pesticides and other chemicals. Emad was denied permission for either himself or his car to enter Israel, effectively banning him from travelling to Gaza [footnote 32].
The economic situation in the Gaza Strip is significantly worse than that of the West Bank. The Gross Domestic Product (GDP) per capita of Gaza is US$850, compared to US$1,700 for the West Bank, US$1,050 for Jordan and US$11,962 for Israel. The Strip is overcrowded, with a population of approximately 880,000, and according to the Planning and Research Centre in Jerusalem, an average of 4,152 people live in each square kilometer of Gaza (on land populated by Palestinians), compared to 260 people per square kilometer in the West Bank.
The same source estimates the refugee population of Gaza to be 635,099 compared to the West Bank's 497,958. The United Nations Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA) puts the figure for Gaza's refugees higher, at 654,955 or 74 percent of the population. UNRWA additionally estimates Gaza's unemployment figure to be between 45-50 percent [footnote 33].
The financial and psychological pressure that a wasted year can put on a student and his or her family in the already economically-deprived Gaza Strip cannot be overlooked. Students who decide to continue their studies without a permit after a closure of the Strip or a refusal to renew their permits live in fear of detection in the West Bank. Families and relatives await news of the arrest of their sons and daughters or the added burden of further financial difficulties posed by a fine. In a society of large families, daughters are often chosen last to pursue higher education. Economic circumstances like this further reduce the likelihood that they will be given the chance to study.
In his excellent article, "Men in the Tomatoes" [footnote 34], John Tyler captures some of the frustration that drives Gazan students to take significant risks to continue their studies. He tells the story of Ramzi [footnote 35], a junior in history and political science from Gaza City, studying at Birzeit;
"After repeated attempts to get out of Erez, he finally approached the driver of a cement mixer, who agreed to take him out that night. Just before 4.00am, about 150 meters from Erez, out of sight of the checkpoint, Ramzi climbed underneath the huge mixer, clutching parts of the truck with his hands and feet to keep him from falling to the ground, not a meter below him.
Ramzi heard the soldier at the checkpoint questioning the driver and then heard the soldier ask the driver to get out of the truck. The soldier got in and started checking the various functions of the truck. Ramzi was clutching the only handhold available to him, one of the moving parts controlling the mixer - if the soldier engaged the mixer, Ramzi would have had to release his hold and fall to the ground. Sweating, his muscles aching, Ramzi heard the soldier descend from the cab, and thanked God when the driver put the engine in gear and pulled slowly away from the checkpoint."
Students have successfully tried a number of ways to 'escape' from Gaza to continue their studies. They have hidden in tea chests and trucks carrying tomatoes and other vegetables; they have swum around the border between Israel and Gaza; and have simply bluffed their way across the quieter border points. The commitment of Palestinian students to their education in the face of endless obstacles placed by the occupation authorities, is almost tangible.
Birzeit Public Relations Director Albert Aghazarian has argued that the Israeli policy of not granting Gazan students permission to study enables Israel to 'justifiably' target particular students who it deems a threat. He believes this is a purposeful move to increase the scope of Israel's control of the population in the Occupied Territories, in a way that minimises censure by the international community;
"I am starting to believe that there is a deliberate policy of pushing Gazan students into finding 'illegal' ways as the only means of getting to the university. This way they are all vulnerable and at the mercy of whichever soldier chooses to harass them. [footnote 36]"
Gazan students discovered without a permit in the West Bank are subjected to detention, fines, deportation to the Strip, and in some cases, torture. This section of the report relates case studies of students' experiences of these measures.
One student, arrested in an Israeli raid on an apartment in Birzeit village on 7 December 1991, was detained and transferred through three separate prisons [footnote 37]. He spent 18 days in the last prison before being released with a fine of NIS 350 [footnote 38].
After the de facto cancellation of all permits through the closure of the Occupied Territories in the wake of the Hebron Massacre in February 1994, Gazan students who chose to ignore the demand to return to the Strip in order to carry on with their studies, were considered by the Israeli military authorities to be doing so "illegally".
On 28 April 1994, Israeli troops conducted midnight raids on student homes in the village of Abu Qash, near Birzeit University, rounding up 29 Gazan students who were studying without permits. The students were halfway through the second semester of the 1993/94 academic year.
The students were imprisoned for one night, then handcuffed and 'deported' en masse to Gaza late the next night. They were left just inside Gaza, well past the nightly 8pm curfew, putting them in serious danger of being shot for 'breaking the curfew'. The students phoned UNRWA, who sent a UN bus to safely drop them off at their homes. Each was fined NIS 450, the equivalent of more than US$150, which many were unable to pay easily.
As news of the mass arrest spread through the Gazan student community at the university, the remaining Gazan students literally ran for the mountains, sleeping under olive trees in the rolling desert hills surrounding the university to avoid detection.
These students, and many others like them who are risking their safety simply to attend classes, are not accused of security offences, yet they live in constant fear of arbitrary arrest, detention, large fines, deportation back to Gaza, and the destruction of their academic career.
Birzeit University, through the Community Workcamp Programme, organized a workcamp in Gaza from 11-14 August 1994, in order that students and visiting international students could participate in the cleaning of beaches and planting trees in Gaza. Over 400 students participated. The Palestinian Liaison Committee was informed of the workcamp and assured the university that the permission needed for the students to have access to Gaza had been approved.
All of the buses arrived in Gaza without incident after being checked at both Beit Sira and Erez checkpoints. After the work was completed, the buses left the Gaza Strip and were again checked at both Beit Sera and Erez without difficulties. After re-entering the West Bank, the buses separated in order to take different routes home. In Beitunia, Captain Avi, Officer of Arab Affairs in the Ramallah Civil Administration, was manning an ad hoc roadblock. He stopped the buses and separated the West Bank students from those from Gaza and Jerusalem. He issued fines of NIS 450 each to 43 students from the West Bank, ostensibly for having been in Israel without individual permits. Some students refused to accept the fine slips, and 14 students from Ramallah were consequently detained in Ramallah Prison overnight. Subsequently, all of the students were summoned by Captain Avi for questioning. Public Relations Director Albert Aghazarian stated in a letter to the Israeli Office of the Co-ordinator of Activities [footnote 39] that;
"The episode has caused unwarranted aggravation and harassment, which is made even more outrageous given the fact that these students were participating in constructive efforts to support peace in the area."
After the Tel Aviv bus bombing on 19 October 1994, 25-year-old Gazan student Faisal [footnote 40] was leaving Birzeit University in a public taxi when a GSS agent at an ad hoc Israeli checkpoint outside the gates demanded to see his identity card. On discovering he was a Gazan in the West Bank at a time when all permits had been canceled, the soldiers arrested him. This was not the first time Faisal had been arrested for a permit violation as he had been one of the 29 students arrested in the April Abu Qash raid described above.
Members of the Public Relations Office and HRAP who were present tried to convince the soldiers to release him but were told to move away and stand by a tree some 15 yards away. Other members of the university administration turned up and continued to appeal for Faisal's release without any success.
Faisal was taken to Ramallah Prison to be interrogated by the GSS. During interrogation, the GSS agents tried to force him to work for them as a collaborator. He was given a piece of paper to write down the names of students at the university who were politically active; he refused. The Israeli army commander who was in charge of the interrogation asked for two assistants to come and sit beside Faisal.
The commander offered Faisal money and a permit to study in the West Bank if he would work with the GSS. Faisal refused. The commander offered to increase the amount of money. Again, Faisal said that he did not want to work with them. They began to threaten him.
Faisal was questioned about events at the university - the upcoming elections and the attitude of the students. He was questioned about Yahya Ayash [footnote 41] and imprisoned student Aiman Abu Khalil. Faisal said he did not know them. The commander asked him what academic subjects Faisal took at Birzeit. When Faisal told him that he was studying history and political science the commander said that these were the same as Abdel-Menem Najeh [footnote 42], and asked Faisal if he knew him. Faisal said that he did not. The commander called him a liar, accusing him of working with Abdel-Menem to kill Captain Majdi. They interrogated him in this manner for about two hours.
The GSS interrogators took Faisal's name and address and entered it into the computer. The commander said, "We know everything about you." He opened Faisal's file on the computer and read out details about his brothers and sisters. They began to beat him viciously, while the commander threatened to rape his mother and sister.
The commander asked Faisal his address in Ramallah, who replied that he did not know exactly. He did not want to tell the GSS officer because it might endanger the other students living there. The commander took him to a room with a map and asked him to point it out. He asked if he lived in a particular house, Faisal said, "Yes". The commander called him a liar and hit him on the head.
The commander insisted that Faisal co-operate and tried to force him to sign a paper. Again he refused. A GSS agent began to punch him on the sideof his head. The commander took off his pistol, put it on the table and asked the other two agent to leave the room.
He told Faisal, "You only have one choice, to work with us. If you don't, I will kill you." He removed the bullets from the gun, leaving one, in order to play 'Russian roulette' with the student. He told Faisal to lean forward over a table with his hands over his head, saying, "You have three seconds to agree to work with us. Do you want to pray to Allah before you die?" He pointed the gun at Faisal's head and counted to three. The commander pulled the trigger, but the gun clicked on an empty chamber. He did this once again.
He asked the shaken Faisal to sign again but, once again, he refused. The commander stood up and pulled Faisal's hand over to the paper to sign. He pulled Faisal's hair and began to smash his head on the table. He stretched Faisal's arm across the table and began to beat it with his hand. Another GSS agent began to beat Faisal on the shoulders with the butt of his gun. The commander brought a camera and took a picture of him.
After this, they told Faisal that they would release him but would keep his magnetic identity card. He was ordered to report to the GSS in Gaza the next morning and was given a fine of NIS450. The commander said, "If you don't go back to Gaza, we will surround Birzeit, arrest you and imprison you again," warning Faisal that he would get an automatic one-year sentence if he did not comply.
Faisal made his way home, and his friends took him to the hospital where the doctor discovered a fracture in his left arm and a wound on his head. The doctor was worried and wanted to examine him further before he returned to Gaza.
Faisal has experienced a lot of pain in his ear following his interrogation. Dr. Ibrahim Abu-Lughod, Vice-President of Birzeit University took him to a clinic in Ramallah, where the doctor discovered a serious injury to his ear, which was possibly a perforation of the eardrum, caused by the beating he had received from the GSS during interrogation.
Faisal didn't want to go back to Gaza without his identity card because he was worried that this would leave him open to harassment from Israeli soldiers at the checkpoints, and he desperately wanted to continue his education. In an effort to protect himself, he slept on the roof of his apartment in Birzeit village. At the end of November 1994, as this report was being written, around 100 Israeli soldiers carried out a raid on his apartment in the middle of the night, arresting the four Gazan students living there, shooting a fifth in the leg as he tried to run away (see below).
Faisal was given the 'opportunity' by the GSS in Ramallah to be deported to Gaza, without a fine or further physical abuse, and with the return of his magnetic identity card, on the condition that he drop any complaints about his torture. After all that he had gone through, he accepted the offer. By the beginning of January 1994, he had still not received his identity card.
On 28 and 29 November 1994, in two consecutive raids on the apartments of Birzeit students, the Israeli military arrested 22 students and ransacked more than 10 homes.
On Monday 28 November, at approximately 10.30pm, a large force of Israeli soldiers and undercover agents entered an apartment building located near Qadura Refugee Camp in Ramallah and forced entry into an apartment where several students were visiting friends. The Israeli forces arrested the students in the apartment and searched the building, breaking furniture and damaging property. They smashed all the windows, course books were ripped-up, clothing was dragged out of wardrobes, and the soldiers took away three boxes of books. One student, explaining the extent of the damage to HRAP, commented, "They even destroyed a house plant we had."
The soldiers continued their search on the roof of the apartment building, where other students were arrested. A total of six students were arrested including four Birzeit students from Gaza.
On Tuesday, the next night, the Israeli military conducted similar raids on 10 apartments housing Birzeit students in Birzeit and Abu Qash villages. During these raids, 18 students were arrested, the majority of whom are from Gaza. Furniture and property was destroyed in a similar manner.
Of the Gazan students that were arrested, 15 were only accused of 'attending university illegally', i.e. without permission from Israel. They were summarily deported to Gaza without any opportunity to mount a legal defence.
To understand the reasoning behind the restrictive permit system and the day-to-day harassment of Gazan students, it is important to consider how Israelis perceive Gazans. Israeli statements by both government and opposition figures reveal the prejudice that has led to discrimination against Gazans.
The problems associated with maintaining the military occupation in the Gaza Strip inspired Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin to say in 1992;
"I would like Gaza to sink into the sea, but that won't happen, and a solution must be found. [footnote 43]"
Since the handover of the Strip to the PNA, the problems of security remain. Palestinians are still angry at the dubious nature of the 'autonomy', the continuing occupation of the West Bank, and the economic difficulties caused by constant closures of the Strip that prevent Palestinians from earning wages from working inside Israel. The idea of creating a permanent geographic segregation between Israelis and Palestinians is one that has recently gained ground with Israeli politicians from both the Labour-led government and the opposition parties. The day of the Tel Aviv bus bombing, Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin stated that;
"We cannot keep having this mixture of Jews and Arabs. We have to stop this blurring. There has to be a separation, not just a technical closure. We have to decide on a separate philosophy. There has to be a clear border demarcating the lines. [footnote 44]"
Opposition members of the Israeli Knesset (MKs) went even further. Likud leader Binyamin Netanyahu said;
"Rabin promised in his electoral campaign to get Gaza out of Tel Aviv, but we got out of Gaza and Gaza is here in Tel Aviv. Only two days ago I personally implored Rabin not to lift the closure of the Gaza Strip. Sadly, Rabin preferred Arafat's interests and the welfare of the Gazans to the safety of his own citizens. Closing Gaza off now is too little, much too late."
Tsomet MK Rafael Eitan called for a permanent closure of the Occupied Territories;
"[and not one] which will be lifted when Rabin thinks the bad press is over. Rabin says the Gazans will starve if he does so. Let them starve if the choice is between their starvation and our being blown to bits. [footnote 45]"
Since the partial handover of Gaza to the Palestinian National Authority (PNA) in May 1994, the popular Israeli belief that the Gaza Strip has become 'a base for military operations against Israel' has fueled much of the reaction to incidents such as the Tel Aviv bus bombing and the kidnapping of Nahshon Wachsman. The torrid language of journalist Steve Rodan's article in the 14 October 'News in Focus' supplement of The Jerusalem Post captures this national paranoia;
"HAMAS enjoys freedom of movement. It trains in Gaza and easily slips over the porous border with Israel. Security sources say infiltration is even easier from Jericho. [footnote 46]"
'A senior security official' was also reported on the front page of the same issue as saying;
"Wachsman is still alive and is being held in Gaza."
It is interesting to note that it was discovered later that neither the kidnapping nor the Tel Aviv bus bombing were carried out by Palestinians from Gaza. Furthermore, Wachsman was not even being held in Gaza. If one considers how profoundly Israeli perceptions of Gazans dictate government policy after incidents like this, the reasoning behind the absence of permits for Gazan students becomes self-evident.
The increasing demonisation of Gazans is not even substantiated within an Israeli frame of reference. Israel currently holds 5,300 Palestinian political prisoners. Of these only 14-17 percent come from Gaza. By contrast, Gazans make up 34 percent of the total Palestinian population in the Occupied Territories [footnote 47].
There has been a fifteen-fold increase in the detentions of Birzeit's Gazan students in 1994 compared with the previous two years, reflecting the growth of negative feeling towards Gazans since the Strip achieved its limited autonomy. In 1992 and 1993 Gazans represented under 10 percent of Birzeit students arrested by the Israelis. In the first eleven months of 1994, this figure has risen to 48 percent with 91 out of the 188 students arrested originating from Gaza [footnote 48]. Over two-thirds of these Gazans were temporarily detained and fined for permit infringements, as opposed to any suspected security offences.
Since the implementation of the Declaration of Principles began with the signing of the Cairo Agreement on 4 May 1994, Gaza has been considered an "autonomous zone" for which the PNA has certain responsibilities, excluding (among other key areas) the control of entry and exit to the Strip. Application for the first permit to travel to study in the West Bank is now made to the PNA, who submit the request to the Israeli authorities for security clearance and approval.
In June 1994, after receiving a copy of a letter from Israel's Ambassador to Britain to a British Member of Parliament (MP) about the situation of Gazan students, HRAP approached Palestinian human rights organisation Al-Haq. After conducting a thorough investigation, Al-Haq concluded that;
"The Gaza-Jericho agreement signed by the Palestinian Liberation Organisation and Israel changed none of the procedures Palestinians must follow in order to obtain permits to enter the West Bank and to move between the West Bank and Gaza Strip. In fact, authority to restrict any Palestinian from entering or leaving the Territories remains with Israel. [footnote 49]"
Birzeit professor Riad Malki, a leading Palestinian opposition figure, has stated that;
"Certainly the Palestinian authority harbours good intentions, but the decision does not rest with the authority......ultimately the authority is impotent; it functions only according to the norms and standards that Israel has dictated. The students will still need Israel to allow them to go to university. [footnote 50]"
In a joint press release of 16 February 1994, the Gaza Centre for Rights and Law, Al-Haq and Birzeit University stated that;
"Students from Gaza must be allowed the unrestricted right to obtain and develop the skills and critical thinking necessary for the development of a functioning self-governing structure and civil society envisioned by the peace agreement.
The Occupied Palestinian Territories form a single communal unit in every way, and urgent intervention is requested from the international community to counteract measures taken by the Israeli authorities to 'de-link' the Palestinian territories by reducing the number of Gazan residents working and studying in the West Bank.
The Universal Declaration of Human Rights guarantees both the right to the freedom of movement and education as basic rights, and must not be compromised by the continuation of a discriminatory permit system levied against Gaza residents."
It is widely believed that the moves to exclude Gazans from the West Bank are a deliberate attempt by the Israeli military authorities to drive a wedge between the two Palestinian communities. Indeed, in 1992, just before Birzeit University reopened after almost five years of closure by Israeli military order, acting-President Dr. Gabi Baramki was told by the Israeli commander of the Ramallah Civil Administration, "Why not forget about having Gazan students at Birzeit?" It was clear that there was an offer of increased favour if the university had considered this option.
The London-based organisation, Friends of Birzeit University (FoBZU), reported in their newsletter published in May 1994 that;
"With the Israelis currently building a 285-mile long electronic containment fence along the Israeli border of the Strip, with sophisticated tracking devices and a broad path of regularly swept sand to detect 'intruders', many see this as a precursor to isolation from the rest of the Occupied Territories, as the 'Declaration of Principles' is implemented and the Israelis withdraw from the Strip. [footnote 51]"
This 'de-linking' of the West Bank and Gaza Strip through the permit system, periodic closures and containment fencing defies both the spirit and letter of the Cairo Agreement signed on 4 May 1994, which states that;
"The two parties view the West Bank and Gaza Strip as a single territorial unit, the integrity of which will be preserved during the interim period..... The Gaza Strip and the Jericho area shall continue to be an integral part of the West Bank and the Gaza Strip and their status shall not be changed for the period of this Agreement. [footnote 52]"
Palestinians feel strongly that the Gaza Strip is an integral part of the Palestinian territories. On 25 March 1994, 300 Birzeit students traveled to Gaza to protest against Israeli measures against the Gazan student population. It had been planned to have a sit-in near the Erez checkpoint at the entrance of Gaza. The Israelis refused to let their coaches pass beyond the Latrun checkpoint, over 40 miles away from the Erez checkpoint at Gaza itself.
In a press release of 29 April 1994, Birzeit president Hanna Nasir commented on the moves to separate Gaza from the rest of the Occupied Territories, saying, "We are not ready for a new apartheid system, Israeli-style. The world has had enough of this kind of racism and discrimination."
Groups working on the Gaza students issue in the international arena have encountered difficulties in their campaigning. Israeli government spokespersons abroad and associated pro-Israel lobby groups have traditionally been less than honest in their communication of the day-to-day realities of the occupation. This has been particularly evident when asked probing questions by foreign governmental representatives.
After FoBZU raised the issue of Gazan students with British MPs in April-May 1994, Israel's ambassador to Britain, Mr. Moshe Raviv, stated in various letters of response to MPs that;
"In the past, Gazan students have had to apply for a permit to travel to study in the West Bank from the local offices of the [Israeli] Civil Administration. After security checks were made, they received a personal permit, which was followed by an application to the offices in the West Bank to obtain another permit allowing them to stay there during their study time.
Since the Gaza-Jericho agreement was signed on May 4th 1994, the first permit is issued by the Palestinian Authority in Gaza directly to the Liaising (sic) and Co-ordinating unit at the Erez checkpoint [where entry and exit to Israel is controlled], where it may be collected by the individual student. It is possible that this new arrangement, along with extra checks and criteria demanded by the Palestinian Authority has created further obstacles for the students in gaining access to their universities. [footnote 54]"
Mr. Raviv's refusal to address the issue of Israel's systematic and arbitrary denial of travel permission to Gazan students, coupled with his claim that responsibility for this lies at least in part with the PNA, is serious. Palestinian human rights organisation Al-Haq investigated this and a number of other specific claims made by Mr. Raviv after a request from HRAP (as mentioned in the previous section on 'de-linking').
Al-Haq asked for an official Palestinian response and received a clear statement from Mr. Freij Al-Khairi, the Palestinian Head of the Joint Civil Affairs Co-operation and Co-ordination Committee, responsible for co-ordinating with the Israeli authorities on civilian matters including entry permits to andfrom the Gaza Strip and the Jericho area. Mr. Al-Khairi stated that the PNA did not restrict Palestinians from entering Israel. He confirmed that;
"We forward all the applications we receive from the local Palestinians to the Israeli officials as soon as possible. Upon receipt of the Israeli permission or rejection, we hand it over to the Palestinian concerned. [footnote 55]"
Mr. Al-Khairi stated that it is the Israeli policy of rejecting the applications of Gazan students that causes the denial of the right to education. He further stated that Palestinian officials consider the issue a priority, and that they raise it at every joint meeting with the Israelis. Recently this took place on 8 November 1994, when the Palestinian representatives requested that Gazan women students be exempt from the closures. The Israelis agreed but subsequently failed to implement this promise [footnote 56]. Only on 7 December were permits granted to almost all of Birzeit's female students from Gaza. The other universities are still waiting for this to happen.
Al-Haq's conclusion, reported in the previous section, clearly still stands;
"The Gaza-Jericho agreement signed by the Palestinian Liberation Organisation and Israel changed none of the procedures Palestinians must follow in order to obtain permits to enter the West Bank and to move between the West Bank and Gaza Strip. [footnote 57]"
It was felt necessary to focus on the issue of misinformation as these Israeli claims were repeated at the highest level in British governmental circles. In letters responding to questions raised by constituents of British MPs at the time of FoBZU's campaign, Mr. Douglas Hogg, Minister for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs, claimed that;
"The issue of permits for the 1,300 Gazan students.... has now been resolved, with permits being issued to students for various lengths of time.... The agreement signed by Israel and the PLO in Cairo on 4 May provides for safe passage between Gaza and Jericho for residents of these areas. [footnote 58]"
With the situation for Gazan students unchanged at the time of Mr. Hogg's letter, and indeed unchanged over five months later, it is clear that there is a need to address the disparity between British government statements and the actual experience of Gazan students. At the time of the initial campaign by FoBZU, the British Consulate in Jerusalem made a request to HRAP for information on Gazan students. From that time until the date of Douglas Hogg's letter two months later, the HRAP had not communicated to the Consulate that the situation had changed.
In fact permits were not issued to even half of the 1,300 students studying at higher education institutions in the West Bank. Studying correspondence from that period, between HRAP and FoBZU, it is clear that the situation was "business as usual". Emma Naughton, the Documentation Officer of HRAP, reported in a fax of 8 June, three weeks prior to Mr. Hogg's letter, that;
"Chaos reigns, despite wan hopes that the Palestinian Authorities had reached some agreement with the Israelis to issue permits en masse. Some students have received permits for three months, others have received 48 hour permits which have not been extended at the Civil Administration in Ramallah, some have been refused outright, and other have yet to apply. Business as usual."
By 21 June, just over a week before Mr. Hogg's letter, she reported that;
"Gaza students are being issued permits in dribs and drabs..."
By 27 June, two days before Mr. Hogg's letter, in response to an request by FoBZU for verification of reports that 'half' of the Gazan students in the West Bank had been issued with permits, Emma Naughton commented that;
"[the] figures about half the students getting permits was based on initial optimistic reports - we aren't anywhere near that number yet."
In her next report, on 11 July, one-and-a-half weeks after Mr. Hogg's letter, she commented that;
"In the last week [4th-10th July], three students have received temporary permits, only to be told at the Civil Administration in Ramallah that there is a problem, and that they must return to Gaza immediately, along with having their magnetic cards confiscated."
Based on these reports from the time of Mr. Hogg's statement, it is clear that neither HRAP, FoBZU, Al-Haq, the Gaza Centre for Rights and Law, the PNA, or any other Palestinian organisation working on the issue would have communicated that there had been any real improvement in their situation. One must conclude, therefore, that the statements about the "resolution" of the issue were based on information provided by Israel. Another example of this tendency to repeat Israeli information without verification of its authenticity by Palestinian sources is recounted on the next page of this report.
In a statement answering the charge that Douglas Hogg seemed to have relied solely on Israeli information in formulating his response to MP's questions, Mr. Richard Dalton, British Consul-General in Jerusalem, replied to HRAP at Birzeit that;
"At the time of the dispute in April/May 1994 over permits, we sought information from a number of Palestinian and international institutions including the media, UNRWA and the HRAP in Birzeit University. Our colleagues at the British Embassy in Tel Aviv were also in touch with the Israeli Civil Administration.
Based on information from these sources (including telephone conversations with HRAP), it was our understanding that the Israelis did finally agree to grant permits to the 1,300 in mid-June. The problem was that many of the students had lost almost three months of classes. The University therefore organised special classes over the summer and autumn to make up for lost time.
I agree with you that it is important for us to have access to the most accurate information available. For this reason, we will continue to consult a range of Palestinian, Israeli and international institutions for background information.
[....] As Mr. Hogg said in his letter of 29 June, we remain concerned by the social and economic consequences of the closure imposed on Gaza and the West Bank. We have repeatedly raised our concerns with the Israeli authorities and will continue to do so. [footnote 59]"
Although we do not doubt the commitment to Gazan students of the British Consulate in Jerusalem and the British Minister for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs, the issue remains that any granting of permits for another soon-to-be interrupted period of time does not constitute a "resolution" of the extensive problems faced by Gazan students.
Coupled with this, the arbitrary issuing, renewal and confiscation of permits and magnetic identity cards continued unabated. Nor does it seem from the HRAP faxed reports that care was taken in informing Mr. Hogg of developments in the issue. Mr. Hogg's use of the word "resolved" in official communications with members of his own government both inferred that the issue had favourably changed and that it would not reoccur in the future. In Birzeit's experience, nothing had nor has changed.
Birzeit University remains concerned by the use of collective punishment against residents of the Gaza Strip in the wake of attacks from Palestinians from the Strip on Israelis, or the presumed involvement of individuals from the Strip as in the case of the October kidnapping of Nahshon Wachsman and the Tel Aviv bus bombing. The misinformed Israeli reaction to these incidents directly resulted in 350 Gazan students from Birzeit alone missing half of the current semester.
With Israeli representatives continuing to disseminate misinformation abroad to foreign governmental representatives, it is important to log this process. A recent example was provided in another letter from Moshe Raviv to British MP Mike Watson, on 3 November 1994. Mr. Raviv was replying to a letter sent by Mr. Watson to the Ramallah Civil Administration about the situation of Gazan students, in which the MP raised the case of the Abu Qash raid of 28 April 1994. Mr. Raviv stated;
"....these students have since returned to their studies this semester with valid permits. [footnote 60]"
As has been repeatedly stated in this report, not one of Birzeit's 350 Gazan students registered for the 1994/95 academic year were issued a permit for the first semester until after 7 December, over a month after the date of Mr. Raviv's letter. In a fax to the ambassador on 12 November 1994, Birzeit pointed out this fact and asked for a response. Mr. Amir Maimon, second secretary at the embassy, delayed his reply until 12 December, saying;
"I have recently received the following information which I believe will be of interest to you.
On December 7th, 1994, the Prime Minister and Minister of Defence gave his approval for 200 Gazan students to continue their studies at Bir Zeit University. This was made possible only after receiving, a day earlier, the applications and commitments (which I outlined in my previous letter to you) from the students, via the Palestinian Authority, as agreed upon during the discussions of the Israeli-Palestinian Coordinating Committee last week.
Therefore, as from December 7th, the Civil Administration will provide permits for these students to enter the West Bank to continue their studies. These permits will be transferred to the students via the Palestinian Authority. [footnote 61]"
HRAP has sent a copy of this letter to the PNA for comment. The inference that the PNA is partly responsible for the delay is known to be false, as the list of Gazan students already studying at the university was passed by the PNA to the Israelis in July 1994, and the list of new students was further submitted at the beginning of the first semester on 1994/95 [footnote 62]. As reported earlier in this document, this collective application resulted in the granting of around 80 permits for a period covered by students' existing documents, one day before they were cancelled in the wake of the Tel Aviv bus bombing. The prolonged denial of permits is the sole result of Israel's delay to grant them until this new system was devised.
The tendency of Israeli foreign representatives to manipulate the truth and of foreign governments to repeat their claims continues to be well documented. On 14 November, Edward Jenkinson, Co-ordinator of FoBZU, wrote to the British Foreign and Commonwealth Office (FCO) concerning the denial of permits to Gazan students. On 9 December, shortly after the new policy to grant 200 permits had been announced by Israel, Mr. Guy Pollard from the FCO's Near and Middle East Department replied, saying;
"Our Embassy in Tel Aviv has asked the Civil Administration in Israel for clarification on the points you raise in your letter. Although they have been unable to give any immediate comment on the position of Gazan students wishing to study in the West Bank they have promised to look into the matter and reply to us shortly."
By 6 January 1995, Mr. Pollard had received a reply. He reported;
"Our Embassy in Tel Aviv received confirmation on 22 December that on instructions from the Prime Minister's Office students in Gaza wishing to pursue studies in the West Bank would now be free to do so. [footnote 63]"
This statement contradicts the recently announced Israeli policy of 7 December, and serves to underline the arbitrary and confused nature of the system. Regarding the accuracy of the statement, the requirement to sign a declaration that infringes on the political rights of an individual can hardly merit the claim that even the 269 are "free" to pursue their studies. These 'loyalty oaths' represent a new and disturbing decision to only grant permission for education to those holding certain political viewpoints, and demands a response from the international community.
As was discussed in some detail in the section of this report entitled 'Loyalty oaths' and 'guinea pigs', the number of Birzeit students granted permits from that time until the publishing of this report in early January, only represented 269 out of a potential 350, 75 percent of the Gazan student population at the university. Some of the other universities reported that permits had been granted to a percentage of their students at the time of publishing this report.
It is clear once again that representatives of the British Government in Israel and the Occupied Territories have not consulted with Palestinian institutions before repeating Israeli statements containing misinformation. Birzeit University was not consulted by the Embassy in Tel Aviv nor by the Consulate in East Jerusalem as to whether the statement from the office of the Israeli prime minister was true. As far as we are aware at the time of writing this report, Birzeit was the only university with permits conditionally granted to students in the period between the statement to the Embassy in Tel Aviv on 22 December, and Mr. Pollard's letter of 9 January. Certainly neither An-Najah nor the Al-Quds Open University had any permits granted during that period, the Al-Quds Open University reported this was unchanged even by 17 January. The statement from the Prime Minister's Office would therefore have been shown to be false had any one of the six West Bank universities been consulted. Birzeit raised its concerns about this with the British Consulate in Jerusalem in a fax of 9 January. No reply was received by the time of publishing this report on 17 January.
It is clear from the above report that there is a need for international intervention that does not allow the Israeli occupation authorities to justify their clear and systematic breaches of international law, and does not rely on Israeli information that intimates either directly or indirectly that the Gaza student issue has been "resolved".
The issue will not be resolved until the Israeli government clearly states all of the details of, and rationale behind, its policy toward Gazan students studying in the West Bank and takes steps both to remove the arbitrary elements of the system and to grant permits to all students from Gaza. The very existence of such a flawed system has a direct and profound bearing on an individual's right to education and should be investigated by the international community. Whatever concerns exist about 'security', these cannot be used to justify such a wide-scale denial of this right. In the opinion of Al-Haq;
"...precautionary measures may not be translated into undue restrictions that violate a host of human rights and fundamental freedoms. [footnote 64]"
Where serious concern is present that any individual is likely to commit acts of violence toward Israeli citizens, this should be dealt with through due legal process on a case-to-case basis, giving the individual his or her full legal rights including information about the charges being leveled against him or her and full recourse to challenge any action or decision in open court, without the presence of secret 'security' information.
Collective punishment can only have destructive results, particularly when the two signatories of the Gaza-Jericho accord have pledged to undertake confidence-building measures. Gaza students should not be bargaining chips in the international political arena, and young people in Gaza, denied opportunities in education and employment, should not be driven into despair and frustration.
Birzeit University calls on the international community to uphold all relevant conventions of international law, including the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, the Fourth Geneva Convention of 1949, the Hague Regulations of 1907, the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights of 1966 and the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights of 1966. There is an urgent need to hold the State of Israel responsible for violations of international legal accords to which it and most other countries in the world have signed. Without adherence to established international norms of academic freedom and human rights, all the recent Israeli-Palestinian agreements that have been signed, including the Declaration of Principles and those since then, will fail to achieve what many across the world have hoped they would solve - the restoration of dignity and humanity to the Palestinian people and an end to a conflict that has torn apart two peoples for most of this century.
The Gaza Centre for Rights and Law have stated clearly the necessity of the intervention of the international community;
"[We have] made oral representations, on behalf of the students, requesting the Civil Administration to lift these restrictions to no avail. In these circumstances the only alternative is a direct plea to the international community and the Israeli government to bring about the cessation of these fundamental human rights violations."
The clearest affirmation of the essential place that education holds in the modern world is found in Article 13 (1) of the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Political Rights of 1966 which states that;
"....education shall enable all persons to participate effectively in a free society, promote understanding, tolerance, and friendship among all nations and all racial, ethnic or religious groups, and further the activities of the United Nations for the maintenance of peace."
These are admirable sentiments which are legally binding on the State of Israel. Students represent part of the future of Palestinian society, and it is upon them that any real and permanent peace in the region will be built. If they are ignored at this juncture, there can be no future for peace in the region [footnote 65].