Salaame

Salaame and Hamdi had four children, and Salaame was eight months pregnant. They had been living in their house two years, after putting their life savings into its construction. They moved out of Hamdi’s parents house, where the overcrowded conditions had made it unbearable to live. They did not even try applying for a building permit, as they knew it would be refused by the Israeli military authorities.

When they received the house demolition order, they couldn’t believe it. Their home was over two years old! And Salaame was expecting soon.

During their court case, the government argued that the houses must be demolished because they were built in an agricultural area and without a permit. The court accepted this argument despite the fact that the area was declared an agricultural zone in 1942 under the British Mandate, and that the current owners of the land as well as their neighbors, had stopped cultivating the land many years ago. Their attorney argued that while fifty years ago there may have been a public interest in designating the land as an agricultural area, today the Israeli occupation authorities either had an obligation to rezone the area or leave the houses standing until the Palestinian Authority took control over the area. Their attorney further argued that the Israeli government was acting in bad faith with its claim that the houses should be demolished because they are located in an agricultural zone, since the Israeli army has planned to rezone the land in a month in order to pave a bypass road for Jewish settlers. Finally, the attorney contended that the court should also consider the humanitarian issue of demolishing two finished homes standing for over two years and which provide shelter for this family, including a woman in her eighth month of pregnancy.

After twenty minutes of argument, the court's justices conferred for one minute and Justice Barak issued the decision on the spot, rejecting the petition and approving the immediate demolition of the home.

Hanan

Hanan is a 21 year old widow and mother of four children. Her husband was an alleged suicide bomber and after his death Israeli soldiers sealed her house, confiscated all her money and valuables, her husband’s car and twice interrogated her. She was not suspected of any involvement in the bombing. Following an abusive interrogation her house was ordered to be demolished.

The Israeli High Court rejected an appeal to have the demolition order removed at which point Hanan was hospitalized with a nervous breakdown. The court ruled that the demolition was a legitimate form of deterrence against future “terrorist attacks”.

There has been a permanent blockade imposed on the West Bank and Gaza Strip since March 1993 which has become steadily more formalized and restrictive after the Oslo agreements were signed. This policy constitutes collective punishment, and is a violation of the Fourth Geneva Convention. The blockades have been condemned by the international community and is contradictory to the spirit of peace and to the Oslo Accords. Article 7 of the Declaration of Principles clearly demands the respect of freedom of movement of laborers from Palestinian-controlled territories to Israel and vice versa. Israel has unilaterally adopted this isolation policy, and Israeli officials have repeatedly stated that the purpose of this siege is to put pressure on the Palestinian Authority and not for “security reasons”. Its main aim is to inflict as much damage as possible on the Palestinian economy, to create despair within the Palestinian community and to force them to accept Israeli security conditions on an unjust peace. The impact of blockades on the Palestinian economy, health, education and employment has produced yet another hardship for Palestinian women.

The Israeli system of blockades has evolved since the outbreak of the Intifada. There were 17 blockades on the Occupied Territories between the onset of the Intifada in December 1987 and September 1993, totaling a period of 145 days. During these periods people and goods were prevented from moving from the West Bank and Gaza to Jerusalem and Israel. These blockades became more sophisticated shortly before and after the signing of the first Oslo accord in 1993. In 1993, the Israeli government imposed a permanent blockade on the West Bank, and instated a system of “entry permits” to control the flow of people across the green line. All Palestinians without a permit are refused entry into Jerusalem and Israel, and this permit system has become increasingly restrictive to now include only married men over the age of 35 and women over the age of 30.

In addition to the normal blockade, the Israeli government periodically imposes a kind of “super-blockade”. The super-blockades are usually imposed during Jewish holidays and feasts, during major Moslem and Christian holidays, after bombings, after clashes between Palestinians and the Israeli military, or prior to the anticipated outbreak of protests. During these periods of super-blockade all entry permits are invalidated and no one is legally allowed to move in or out of the West Bank or Gaza. There were 8 such super-blockades in 1994, extending over a period of 77 days: 58 over the West Bank, 18 over Gaza, and 3 over Palestinian-controlled Jericho.

During the normally restrictive blockades, some 51,000 Palestinians have entry permits and are able work inside Israel and Jerusalem, still a dramatic decline from before the blockades were instated. During periods of super-blockade, none of the 51,000 workers can go to their workplaces, with serious implications as these workers are often the only source of income for lower-income families. Recently, in another move destined to help further impoverish the Palestinian economy, the Director General of the Israeli Builders and Contractors Association said, in the Israeli daily “Ha’aretz”, that the construction sector would not hire any more workers from the Occupied Territories, even those with valid entry permits. According to the Director, the construction sector currently employs some 20,000 legal workers, and perhaps another 30,000 “illegally” (without an entry permit). For an economy which traditionally depends on their workers inside Israel and Jerusalem, the implications are obvious.

Despite the signing of the Interim Agreement, or Oslo II, in September 1995 and the cessation of the Intifada, the blockade policy has remained. In fact, it became even easier for the Israeli army to prevent the movement of Palestinian residents in the West Bank. The canton-like Palestinian-controlled Areas A of the West Bank are easily surrounded and sealed by the Israeli military, and a new and improved blockade, or siege, has periodically been put into effect. During these periods all residents of Palestinian controlled areas are under a kind of “Area A” arrest, and villagers and agricultural produce from outlying areas cannot come to the towns and people and goods from the towns cannot go to the villages. All Palestinians, even those with permits, are refused entry to Jerusalem and Israel, and the Palestinian borders with Jordan and Egypt are frequently closed. This policy of total isolation and economic strangulation, results in massive economic loss, a degradation in health care, and holds serious ramifications for those needing medical care and for schooling. In 1996, following Oslo II, 6 such sieges were imposed. Two of these sieges alone covered the entirety of the West Bank for a period of 65 days, while the remaining four were partial sieges which closed Bethlehem, Ramallah and Hebron.

Thus far in 1997, the Israeli government has imposed five sieges on the West Bank. Two sieges covered all Palestinian-controlled areas, and the other three were partial sieges closing the towns of Hebron, Nablus and nearby villages for a total period of 38 days. Bethlehem remained under a total siege recently for a period of 24 days. In total, there have been an estimated 48 Israeli super-blockades or sieges on the Occupied Territories for a combined period of 436 days.

This kind of collective punishment has proved inefficient in reducing tension and minimizing violence, as it punishes only the innocent. On the contrary, violence inside and outside the West Bank and Gaza can be traced to this Israeli policy and the additional hardship it entails. Collective punishment is actually another method contributing to the spread of violence, increase in tensions, and reduction in confidence in the “peace process”.

Women’s Lives - CLOSURE

Haniya from Deheishe Refugee Camp, Bethlehem

Haniya’s daughter got married in September 1996 to a cousin in Gaza. Since then she has lived there with her husband. Haniya’s daughter is expecting her first child later in August, and has asked her mother to come to Gaza to be with her during this first delivery. Haniya was anxious to go, as this was her first married daughter, and her first child to live so far away from home. She has repeatedly applied for a travel permit to Gaza, although she should be able to travel freely on the “safe passage routes” guaranteed by the Oslo agreement (interim) but which have never been implemented. Her applications were routinely denied. Even the fact that she needed a permit in the first place was new - prior to the Oslo agreements Palestinians traveled freely between the West Bank, the Gaza Strip and Israel.

Last month, in July, it was announced that women over the age of 35 would be able to obtain travel permits to Gaza. Haniya applied for her permit, but before she could obtain the permit, a total siege was clamped on the West Bank and Gaza in response to the latest bombings in West Jerusalem. Now all permits have been invalidated, and Haniya cannot travel outside of Bethlehem, much less to Gaza. She has no idea when she will be able to see her daughter and grandchild.

Magda

Magda is from Beit Jala, and her mother and two sisters visiting from Saudi Arabia. They were scheduled to leave the West Bank on the first of August to cross the border back into Jordan, but have been prevented due to the closure and total siege. All international borders open to Palestinians were closed in this period, an unprecedented event - borders were not even closed during the 1973 War.

They went to the Palestinian Interior Ministry to ask what to do, and to see if at least Magda’s mother could leave to be with her sick husband, who suffers from a heart ailment and who is currently waiting for his wife and daughters in Jordan.

They were informed that the mother could not leave on her own, since her youngest daughter is listed on her Israeli issued West Bank ID and her Palestinian passport, and that this daughter could not get an exit permit without these things, and that in any case no exit permits were being given in the wake of the siege. The family remains in Beit Jala, and Magda’s father still waits for his wife and children in Amman.

Salwa

Salwa, a Palestinian-American journalist married and living in the West Bank, has not been able to enter Jerusalem following the signing of the Interim Agreement of 1995 (or Oslo II). Salwa applied for residency in the West Bank, which was approved in 1994, but has since been waiting for her Israeli issued West Bank ID card to be approved. Her tourist visa has long since expired, and she is now subject to the same restrictions as West Bank residents. In addition, in the absence of a valid ID or visa, she has been unable to leave the country at all, to go to the States to visit her family. If she does leave the country before obtaining the West Bank ID, her application becomes invalid and she must begin the process again.

Salwa, who has been living in the West Bank since 1990, says that prior to Oslo she overstayed her visa and could still move about. During the Intifada, for example, while there was shooting and general unrest in Bethlehem, she could leave Bethlehem with just her passport, enter Jerusalem in order to write and submit her story, and return home without a problem. Now she says it is an entirely different ball game.

Bethlehem has become a prison. Even though she is an American citizen, she is unable to leave Area A, or Bethlehem and has lost several job opportunities with the Western media as a result. Her case is typical of the economic consequences of the ongoing blockade. No longer can workers move freely to their jobs and back home.

Rima

Rima owns a small textile factory in Beit Jala near Bethlehem. They produce garments from Israeli material for the Israeli market. She must go to Tel Aviv now and then to discuss business, although the Israeli military authorities have never given her a permit. Therefore she must sneak across the Bethlehem border and take a taxi to Tel Aviv. She also is unable to obtain the materials herself, she must hire an Israeli in an Israeli car to pick up the cloth for her.

These problems are new. Before the Oslo agreements were signed, her Israeli contacts traveled to the West Bank to discuss business with her and deliver the raw materials. Since Oslo, as is the case with many Israelis, her business partners have felt uncomfortable traveling in a Palestinian Autonomous Area, and refuse to come.

Therefore she is forced to take the hazardous journey to Tel Aviv, to sneak around to keep her business afloat, and is sometimes unable to get the raw materials to keep her small business profitable

Jamile

Jamile works at a day care center in Beit Sahour near Bethlehem, a day care center just past the Area A/C checkpoint. When an Israeli military checkpoint is put there during times of siege (a total military blockade on Areas A), she and the children who attend her daycare center must sneak around the Israeli soldiers on a dirt road to get to the building. Several days after the total siege began, the soldiers sealed off the dirt road with piles of dirt and rubble. Jamile tried to walk through the checkpoint with the children, but the soldiers did not allow them through. They then had to walk back and use a local Beit Sahour kindergarten as a day care facility.This, needless to say, was very unsettling and disruptive for the young children.

Education in general is interrupted during times as of siege, as children cannot pass from Area A or Area C to their schools, and vice versa. This interference in the workings of the educational system is the policy which affects children the most. Recently, the first day of school was canceled for Bethlehem children because school buses couldn’t pass the military checkpoints put up around the town. Children stood for hours in their new school uniforms waiting for buses that never came.

Nifin

Nifin is 37 years old and has three children. The eldest is 10 years old. She is originally from Gaza and has eight sisters and one brother. On August 24, her only brother was set to get married in Gaza. Nifin tried to obtain a permit to go from Ramallah to Gaza to attend the wedding. She tried and tried but to no avail. Her application was rejected with no reason. This despite the fact that she is a mature woman traveling with three young children. The fact that this was the wedding of the only son in a large family of daughters made no difference - the human element had no effect on her application.

On August 23, her lawyer appealed to the Ministry of Justice threatening to go to the High Court, to request a reconsideration of the application. On August 24 at 5:30 p.m., after many phone calls from her lawyer complete with screaming, threats, and anxiety, the Israeli military authorities informed the lawyer that the permit had been approved. Nifin went to the military headquarters in the West Bank hoping to still make the wedding that night. There they delayed her for another hour and a half, claiming that since the hours of her travel were not specified in the approval letter she could not get a permit. After another intervention of her lawyer, the permit was approved and Nifin arrived in Gaza at 12:00 am, long after the wedding had ended.

Zahya

Zahya is a 19 year old Bedouin woman. She was in her final stages of pregnancy when the siege began on the Palestinian controlled Areas A of the West Bank. She left in a private car to go to the hospital in Ramallah to give birth, but was stopped by Israeli soldiers at a military checkpoint outside the town.

The soldier refused to let her pass, despite her pleas to allow her to continue. After a two hour delay, she gave birth to a baby boy at the military checkpoint. The soldier stood by as she gave birth there in the car.

Sonia

For Sonia, Israel's closure of the West Bank meant a cutoff from her newborn baby girl who was undergoing throat surgery alone in a Jerusalem hospital. Sonia faced many obstacles trying to get to her daughter. Her daughter, born July 22, had had trouble sucking milk and required a throat operation. Manal was taken to Maqassed, while Sonia, too weak to travel, stayed behind.

After a week of being turned away at Israeli army roadblocks after the imposition of the siege on Areas A in the beginning of August, the 20 -year-old Palestinian woman was finally able to sneak into Jerusalem on Wednesday, trekking 35 miles on dirt paths and back roads from her northern West Bank village of Tubas. She returned to Tubas with her new born child, wrapped in a white blanket, carried close to her chest.

Under the Labor and now Likud government, the Israeli security forces have continued their policies aimed at eliminating Palestinian political criticism of the Oslo agreements. The Israeli military administration in the West Bank arrested and tortured hundreds of Palestinians and refused to release the approximately 4000 Palestinian prisoners and 400 administrative detainees (Palestinians imprisoned without charge or trial) inside Israeli prisons, although it committed to do so under the Oslo Agreements. In addition, these prisoners, previously incarcerated in prisons in the West Bank, were transferred to prisons in Israel proper after the redeployment of the Israeli army following the implementation of Oslo II. Transferring prisoners from an Occupied Territory into the occupying country is expressly forbidden by the Fourth Geneva Convention, articles 49 and 76.

In addition, torture is widely employed during interrogations, adding to the physical as well as emotional hardship of this unjust imprisonment. Under the Rabin and Peres leadership and with the participation of Meretz leader Yossi Sarid, the Israeli Knesset renewed at least four times its temporary permission for the Israeli secret service to use more intense methods of torture than normally legally sanctioned under Israeli law. More intense forms of torture includes the fatal head-shakings during interrogations of Palestinian detainees. Here it should be noted that Israel is the only country in the world with a legally-mandated policy of torture, and that Israeli legally-mandated torture methods are also expressly prohibited by the United Nations Convention Against Torture and other Forms of Cruel, Inhuman, or degrading Treatment or Punishment to which Israel is a signatory.

After Oslo II was signed in September 1995, the Israelis put into administrative detention over 200 Palestinians. Today the number totals 400 Palestinian administrative detainees, many of whom are entering their second and third year in administrative detention. This policy violates the Fourth Geneva Convention article 78, which forbids the use of administrative detention for extended periods of time. The Israeli security forces continue to hold these Palestinians in administrative detention because of their criticisms of the Oslo Agreement - views held today by many Palestinians, Israelis and even prominent members of the Israeli government. Not one detainee has been tried or convicted or any offense; all are being held based on secret evidence withheld from the detainee and his defense attorney. Under Annex VII of Oslo II, the Israelis committed to release all detainees imprisoned for activities not resulting in fatalities. This has yet to be carried out.

The women who depend on and whose lives are connected to the men in administrative detention have been thrown into chaos and uncertainty. Because administrative detention, or imprisonment without charge or trial, lasts for an indefinite amount of time, often several years, administrative detention is a cruel punishment indeed. In a society where many women are dependent on the income of their husbands, the loss of this revenue is devastating for them and their families. Women suffer from the loss of support and income when their fathers, husbands or brothers disappear into the Israeli prison system. None of these women know when their husbands, brothers or sons will be released.

Women’s Lives - House Demolitions

Enas, Jumana and Feirook

Enas, Jumana and Feirook are sisters, now orphans, living alone in a house in el Azza refugee camp. Their brother, Dirar, was arrested a month after their mother died in March 1995. In June 1996, their father fell gravely ill and died, and Dirar was not allowed either to visit his father while ill or to go to the funeral. There was a complete blockade on the West Bank at the time of their father’s death, and the sisters were likewise unable to visit Dirar or to share their grief with him for four months. They were only allowed one three minute phone call with him after their father’s death.

Now, two sisters visit Dirar each week when there is not a full closure, to bring him supplies. These women, like all women waiting for the release of adminsitrative detainees, have no idea how long they will be alone until their brother returns. The fact that these women live alone, orphaned, in a society where culturally this is very difficult, adds to the human dilemma for these women.

Suha

Suha Barghouti is an accountant. Suha’s husband, Ahmed Qattamesh, has been in administrative detention since 1992 and is the longest serving detainee. For five years she has been denied conjugal visits normally given to wives of Jewish administrative detainees. For the past nine months, she has been unable to visit him at all, for “security reasons”. Her visits take place in any case behind wire mesh, and she must get permission from the military authorities even to board the Red Cross bus.

Her daughter, now 7, last lived with her father when she was 3. Now, she must go to the prison to visit her father in the care of another adult, as her mother has been banned from the prison. Suha is being “punished” for publishing two books that her husband wrote from prison.

Fatima

Fatima and Ahmed were engaged and lived in Area C of the West Bank. The wedding, for which they had already decorated, was arranged for Ahmed’s house. Three weeks before the wedding, the Israeli military raided Ahmed’s house, destroyed the room in which they were to be married and arrested Ahmed. Ahmed has been under interrogation and tortured for a month and a half, and Fatima has been prohibited from seeing him. Their lives have been put on hold for an undetermined amount of time.

Although many believe that Palestinians mainly value Jerusalem as their religious capital, this city is the economic, social, religious and political hub of Palestinian life. Jerusalem comprises the most essential element in the Palestinian conception of a future state, as every major facet of Palestinian life is linked to the city in economic, political and social terms. But Jerusalem has been closed to the 2.5 million Palestinians from the West Bank and Gaza since the general blockade began in 1993. Since 1967, however, the Israeli Jerusalem Municipality, particularly under the administration of Likud mayor Ehud Olmert, has followed a policy to consolidate Israeli control over the city by restricting Arab neighborhoods, expanding existing settlements, denying or revoking residency to Arab Jerusalemites, road construction, and house demolition.

Housing Balance

The Israeli government and the Israeli Jerusalem Municipality has consistently used a "housing balance" policy, designed to limit the Arab presence in Jerusalem and to significantly increase the Jewish population in Arab East Jerusalem. Amir Heishan, the advisor to former Mayor Teddy Kollak, declared that balanced housing meant preference for Jewish housing with the eventual aim of making the Arab population a minority in East Jerusalem. The target percentage for the Arab population was set at 24 % of the total population of Jerusalem, a figure which still serves as the guidelines for the current Israeli mayor, Ehud Olmert.

Residency

During this time, in another effort to limit the Arab population in Jerusalem, the Israeli Jerusalem Municipality enacted far-reaching policies that restricted residency rights to family members (spouses, children etc.) who were married or in the immediate family of a Jerusalem resident. As a result families were forced apart or made to relocate to the West Bank. For example, a man from Jerusalem who marries a woman from Jordan either could not live with his wife or could not live, as is traditional, with his family in Jerusalem as his wife often cannot obtain the residency permit to live in Jerusalem. He would be forced to relocate to Jordan, whereupon he risks losing his Jerusalem identity card and its attendant benefits (see below). At least 4000 families have been affected by these policies.

Jerusalem Identity Cards

Recently the Israeli government passed further legislation to facilitate this population transfer. This new legislation links, for Palestinian residents of Jerusalem only, the place of work with the place of residence. Now, if someone lives in Ramallah (where housing, while expensive, is at least affordable), but works in Jerusalem (with their Jerusalem identity card), or if they live for an extended period of time outside the country, they will lose their right to a Jerusalem ID and their right to live in their birthplace. Since 1967, a total of about 3874 Jerusalem identity cards have been confiscated. Over 689 Jerusalem identity cards were confiscated in 1996 alone, a 600% increase than in past years, reflecting an intensified effort to remove Palestinians from Jerusalem (figures from Alternative Information Center).

Building Permits and Confiscation

The refusal to grant building permits continues to be a leading method of restricting Arab expansion. Overcrowding has become a critical issue for Jerusalem residents, as they are prevented from building by restrictive zoning plans and because the municipality very rarely issues building permits to Palestinian residents of Jerusalem. The municipality also unequally invests in the construction of housing. According to figures provided by Israeli Mayor Olmert, some 6500 units are planned for Jewish Israelis at Har Homa, in addition to another 2100 in other Jewish settlements. In contrast, only 400 units are being planned for Palestinians in Jerusalem. Municipal funding for housing for Palestinians has almost never been implemented. Only one public housing project has ever been completed in Jerusalem, several hundred units built nearly 20 years ago. Palestinians are skeptical that these 400 units will ever be built.

Olmert claims that there are 2600 illegally constructed homes in East Jerusalem, illegal since building permits are very rarely issued by the Municipality. He is using this number to embark on a demolition campaign against Palestinian homes in the city - since 3 August 1997, 13 homes have been demolished. In addition, confiscations through the use of the Absentee Properties law continue in and around the old city, resulting in a loss of about 50 Arab owned houses in the Old City alone. The plans currently under study to rebuild the "City of David", really the Arab village of Silwan, will mean increased attempts to take over Arab owned land and property.

Road Construction

Construction of roads has been used to effectively cut the West Bank and Gaza Strip into more easily controlled "bantustans". They serve as another excuse to confiscate lands, to enclose and to prevent the expansion of Arab villages, to cut off villages and local populations from their fields, and to link Jewish settlements around Jerusalem to Jerusalem itself.

Closure

The continuing closure of Jerusalem to Palestinian residents of the West Bank, imposed in March 1993, remains one of the cruelest and most difficult of the repressive measures imposed first by Rabin and continued to the present day. Access to Jerusalem's political, cultural, educational and medical facilities is greatly curtailed and, in the case of a "super blockade" (imposed after attacks on Israelis or for religious holidays), rendered totally inaccessible. This imposes an irretrievable economic and cultural loss on the Palestinian residing within Jerusalem and Palestinians living on the other side of the Green Line.

Taxes

The Israeli Jerusalem Municipality has orchestrated a campaign to force collection of the weighty arnona property tax from Palestinian shopkeepers in Occupied East Jerusalem in a further attempt to intimidate, harass and remove the Palestinian inhabitants of the city.

The Israeli municipality seeks to solidify Jewish demographic superiority over this part of the city and effectively end the possibility for a viable dynamic Jerusalem for Palestinians, both Moslem and Christian. The completion of these plans will cut off this vital lifeline from the West Bank, cut the city from the residents on which it depends, and have serious repercussions particularly for women in the health, education, and economy.

Women’s Lives - Jerusalem

Suheir

Suheir studies at al Quds University in Abu Dis in Jerusalem. She is trying to obtain her Bachelor’s degree in Arabic. She has one four year old boy, whom she leaves in the care of her elderly mother in law.

To get to University each morning, should normally be a 30 minute trip. With a small child to care for, she is concerned about getting to and from University as quickly as possible. The Israeli military authorities will not issue her a permit to enter Jerusalem although she is enrolled and studies there, and the continued regular blockade (imposed in 1993) on the West Bank means she cannot travel directly to the school or legally enter Jerusalem.

Suheir therefore must either take the long and treacherous route through what is called Wadi Nar - “ The Valley of Fire”, a winding and dangerous mountain road which formerly was a donkey path. This trip takes over an hour in the mornings, time which she does not have to spare. She therefore sneaks past the main Israeli military checkpoint of Bethlehem, and hopes not to be caught or arrested by the soldiers in the area. Suheir fights with depression as she struggles to obtain her degree. Constant fear of arrest is a high price for trying to get ahead.

Hind and Fatin

Hind and Fatin, both in their 50’s, are devout Moslem women for whom it is important to pray at al Aqsa mosque in Jerusalem on Fridays. Since 1993, however, when the Israeli government set up military checkpoints at the entrances of all roads into the West Bank and imposed a general and ongoing blockade of the Occupied Territories, these women have not had the option of traveling to Jerusalem for their weekly prayers.

For these women, then, the question became how to get around the military checkpoints in order to pray. They were not discouraged by the presence of the soldiers and the checkpoints, but instead planned an alternative route taking them kilometers around the outskirts of Bethlehem on dirt roads and through a valley before finally reaching the main road past the checkpoint which would take them to the mosque. These women take this route on foot, and go as often as possible.

Najah G

Najah is a Jerusalem resident. Approximately seven years ago, she and her husband decided to move to Ramallah/ West Bank, since they had failed to find a suitable home in Jerusalem. In 1995, Najah lost her ID card while she was shopping. She submitted an application to the Interior Ministry asking to replace her lost ID card. When she came back to pick up her new ID, she was informed by the clerk that she was no longer entitled to a Jerusalem ID, due to the fact that she and her husband are living in Ramallah. The Ministry did not change its position, despite the fact that Najah’s lawyer explained that Israeli law does not explicitly define the West Bank as a “foreign country”, and that Regulation 11 of the Law of Entry therefore does not necessarily apply to her case.

‘Aida S

‘Aida is a Jerusalem resident and married to a Jordanian citizen. Since ‘Aida’s application for family reunification for her husband was rejected, the couple established their home in Jordan. Since then, ‘Aida has come to Jerusalem regularly in order to visit her family. In summer 1995, ‘Aida came with her family, her husband entering Israel as a tourist using his Jordanian passport. Following the comment by a clerk of the National Insurance Institute that her ID card was old (11/10/1983) and would need renewal, ‘Aida went to the Interior Ministry, handed in her old ID card and submitted an application for a new one. The Ministry, however, rejected her application on the grounds that she was no longer considered a Jerusalem resident, because her “center of life” is in Jordan.