The Gaza Strip
Israel’s apartheid regime prevents thousands of Palestinian families, in which one spouse is from the West Bank and the other is from the Gaza Strip, from living together as a family in the West Bank. These families are forced to make an impossible choice between living together in Gaza – at the cost of separating from family in the West Bank and enduring the harsh living conditions and financial hardships in Gaza – or living apart, with one spouse raising the children on their own. The ban is part of Israel’s separation policy, designed to isolate the Gaza Strip and implemented since the 1990s. Israeli-imposed restrictions were tightened when the second intifada began in September 2000, peaking in 2007, when Israel put the Gaza Strip under a blockade, imprisoning residents inside it. Since then, Israel has allowed residents to leave Gaza only in rare, exceptional cases it defines as “humanitarian,” treating these permits as a gesture of goodwill towards the recipients rather than their right. Israel has made it clear that, as a rule, marriage does not justify passage between the Gaza Strip and the West Bank, and the Israeli Supreme Court upheld this position, giving it a legal seal of approval. This state of affairs belies Israel’s claim that it has no responsibilities towards Gaza’s residents after having implemented the disengagement plan in 2005. Using its near complete control over all crossings – in both the West Bank and the Gaza Strip – and over the Palestinian population registry, Israel dictates Palestinian subjects’ daily lives and meddles in their most basic relationships: with spouses, parents and other relatives. The main victims of this Israeli policy are women from the Gaza Strip who married residents of the West Bank. They are left to raise their children alone in the harsh conditions of the Gaza Strip, with no hope or certainty regarding their future. B’Tselem collected testimonies from some women forced to live in this way. Yasmin ‘Abd al-Basset (35), a resident of Gaza City, lives with her four children in the Gaza Strip. Her husband lives in the West Bank. On 6 September 2022, she told B’Tselem field researcher Khaled al-’Azayzeh how Israel has repeatedly refused her applications for a permit to travel to the West Bank, so the family can live together: I came with my family from Saudi Arabia to the Gaza Strip in 1994. In 2009, I married my husband, Muhammad ‘Ali ‘Abd al-Basset ( 37), who is originally from ‘Azzun’ Atmah in Qalqiliyah District and has a West Bank ID card. Before the wedding he entered Gaza through Rafah Crossing, alone, without his relatives from the West Bank. We lived in Gaza until 2016, and during that time had three sons; ‘Abd al-Karim, who is now 12 years old, ‘Ali, now 10, and ‘Amru, now 8. At the time, my husband worked in bookstores and at a glass workshop. In March 2016, his father fell ill, so he applied for a permit to cross over to the West Bank for me and for our three sons. The applications were approved, but when we got to Erez Crossing with the children that month, we waited for four hours and were then informed that I was denied passage and wouldn’t be able to cross. They gave no explanation. In the end, my husband crossed the checkpoint with ‘Abd al-Karim and ‘Ali. I wouldn’t let him take ‘Amru, who was still nursing and stayed with me. It was awful being separated from my two sons. I collapsed. I was afraid I’d never see them again. I had hoped to leave Gaza with my husband and the boys, but then everything went black. ‘Amru and I went back to my family’s house. I couldn’t stop crying and didn’t eat for several days. I felt that we were a burden for the family. It was terribly crowded in the house. Three weeks after my husband left, ‘Ali got sick. He had a throat infection and was admitted to hospital in Qalqiliyah for ten days. I asked my husband to send me his medical reports and applied for a permit to travel to the West Bank so I could be near ‘Ali, but my application received no response. My husband filed several applications for me to go to the West Bank, but they were all rejected by Israel. After about two months, in May 2016, my husband returned to Gaza with ‘Abd al-Karim and ‘Ali. They came in through Erez Crossing, and we all lived together in an apartment we rented. We also bought furniture and appliances, and my husband went back to work at the glass workshop. Our son ‘Iz a-Din was born on 20 February 2021. In October 2021, my husband’s father took a turn for the worse and became fully paralyzed. This time, my husband applied for a permit for himself only, in order to visit him. He received the permit and went to the West Bank. After about a month, in November 2021, he renewed his ID card and applied for a change of address for me and for the children, but we’re still waiting for the request to be approved. Now my husband is in the West Bank, taking care of his father together with his brother, and I live in Gaza with our four sons. I’m suffering terribly from our family being torn apart. My son ‘Abd al-Karim is going through puberty, and it’s hard for me to deal with him alone. He feels like he’s a grown-up, doesn’t listen to me and complains that his father is not around. He has a problem with his left eardrum and needs regular check-ups, so I take him once a month for a check-up. I noticed he has facial tics and when I ask him why, he says it’s because he’s tired and also because he misses his dad. When ‘Amru talks to his father on the phone, he’s angry, and sometimes tells him that he hates him for leaving and abandoning us, but keeps asking when he’ll take us to the West Bank to be with him. When my husband returned to the West Bank at the time, ‘Iz a-Din was only eight months old. He basically doesn’t know his father. I’m supposed to take him to a-Shifaa Hospital next week for surgery on his testicles. It’s hard for me to take responsibility for everything on my own, while their father is supposed to be by my side and helping me raise our children. I do everything I can to provide for my children, even though their demands are increasing day by day. Our financial situation is tough. I work as a librarian and my husband sends us money from the West Bank every month, but it’s not enough. My father, who lives off aid from the Welfare Ministry, can’t help. I signed the boys up for a soccer club in the summer, but because I don’t have enough money, they’ll have to stop going. In July 2022, I heard that Israel approved applications for permits to visit family in the West Bank, so I submitted an application with the Civilian Affairs department in Gaza, but I haven’t received an answer yet. I stay on top of the news to see if I can apply for a change of address. I’m still hopeful it can happen. Muna al-Astal, a 36-year-old mother of four from Khan Yunis, spoke about the difficulty of raising children alone, as her husband is in the West Bank and Israel refuses to allow the family to join him, in a testimony she gave B’Tselem field researcher Khaled al-‘Azayzeh on 6 June 2022. My husband Riyad (47) and I got married in 2004 in Gaza. Riyad has a West Bank ID card and shortly after we got married, he went back to the West Bank and started working in Israel, and I stayed in the Gaza Strip. He managed to visit us in Gaza a handful of times, sometimes via Erez Crossing and sometimes via Rafah Crossing. There were two years in a row when he didn’t visit at all. The last time I saw him was a year ago. About 12 years ago, my husband submitted an application for me and for our four children, who were all born in Gaza, to register our address in Qalqiliyah. About 10 months ago, in October 2020, the request was approved. I cried for joy and prayed and thanked Allah. I sent my old ID card to my husband, so he could go to the Ministry of the Interior in Qalqiliyah and change the address, but they only changed the address of two of our four children, ‘Abd al-Jawad (15) and Dima (12). For Muhammad, who was three years old, and Maram, who turned 16 just months earlier, they did not change the address. All my joy was gone in an instant. After about eight months, they registered Muhammad on my ID card, but to this day they haven’t added Maram, even though her father and I and all her siblings are registered in Qalqiliyah. About seven months ago, I had to get Maram a new ID card with a Gaza address. Right after that, her father submitted another application for her to change her address to Qalqiliyah. Until her change of address is approved, the children and I will remain in Gaza, away from my husband. I can’t leave Maram alone in Gaza. Our youngest, Muhammad, is already four years old. He doesn’t know his father and calls my husband’s brother “Dad.” Maram has become very sensitive and cries every time she sees her friends spending time with their parents. Her daughter Maram (16) described the rift in her family in her testimony: Only my mother and my brothers received permission to change their address to Qalqiliyah, where my father has lived for a long time. The Israeli occupation refused to let me move there with them, and I’m the only one still registered in Gaza. My father lives a few kilometers from Gaza, and I can’t get to him just because there’s a checkpoint. I’m not a terrorist. I just want to live with all my family together. It’s my right to travel through all Palestinian cities without obstacles and reach him. I can’t remember the last time I woke up and hugged my father like other children. I also can’t remember the last month of Ramadan when Dad sat with around the table with us during the breakfast meal. I only see him on the phone screen, which is very hard for me because it’s not real. I wish I get the permit and we can all move in together. Hanan Abu Sa’ (34), a resident of Gaza, lived in the United Arab Emirates with her husband and three children for seven years. After her husband was laid off during the coronavirus pandemic, they had to return to the Occupeid Territories – he to Tulkarm and she to Gaza with the children. On 5 June 2022, she spoke with B’Tselem field researcher Khaled al-‘Azayzeh about the difficulty of raising the children without their father and Israel’s refusal to approve their applications for family reunification. I met my husband, Ayman (34), in the United Arab Emirates and we got married there. We lived there until 2019 with our three children, who were born there: Jud (9), Ahmad (7) and Ward (5). When the coronavirus pandemic broke out, problems started at my husband’s workplace. He was working as an electrical engineer and was eventually laid off. The children and I went back to live in the Gaza Strip, and my husband returned to Tulkarm, where he was born and where his family lives. That’s how our family was torn apart. He found a job there, and he in a rental with roommates to save money. He sends about half of his salary to us. The last time we met was in October 2019, when I went with the children to meet their father in Turkey. Ward, who was two years old at the time, squealed with joy when she saw her dad at the airport. We spent three months there together, and then I went back with the children to Gaza and my husband returned to Tulkarm. Traveling with the children was very difficult, especially through Rafah Crossing. Ahmad keeps recalling the experiences he had with his father and says the only thing he wants is his dad. One night, Ward fell and hit her head and I had to take her to hospital, so I left Jud and Ahmad, who were very small, alone at home. It’s very hard to cope with the kids without my husband, especially now that Jud has a thyroid infection. She has to get surgery to remove a tumor on her neck. I’m afraid of the responsibility of consenting to the surgery alone, without my husband, because the doctors say it’s an operation that can put her at risk. Our family is in pieces. The children suffer from their father’s absence, so I try to call him whenever there’s s a good internet connection. Sometimes my husband gets within a few kilometers of Gaza and calls to say he’s close by. It makes me cry, knowing he’s so close to us but we can’t see him. I know his family in Tulkarm is also giving him a hard time because we’re torn apart. I’m scared that in the end, we’ll have to get divorced and there will be no solution. Because I live alone, people are constantly checking on me. Because of the mentality in Gaza, it’s hard for me to be independent and sometimes I have to come home before it gets dark, even if I haven’t finished my errands. It’s been almost two years since my husband last filed for a change of address for me and the children, and we haven’t received an answer yet. Update: Hanan Abu Sa’ traveled with her children to Egypt hoping to reach Jordan and from there enter the West Bank. However, she reported that after an exhausting journey and difficulties at the crossing, the Jordanian authorities denied them entry and they had to turn back. Marwah Abu Hamadah is a 37-year-old mother of three. In 2019, she and her second husband, a resident of Bethlehem, got married in Cairo. She lived with him in the West Bank for about two years, without an official status and in constant fear of being deported along with the baby she had meanwhile. When her father fell ill, she returned to Gaza, but Israel rejected all her applications to return to the West Bank. For over a year, she and her infant daughter were separated from her husband. On 26 July 2022, before her application to return to the West Bank was approved, Abu Hamadah told B’Tselem field researcher Olfat al-Kurd about the hardship and uncertainty in her life: My husband, Muhammad a-Sha’er (52), a resident of Bethlehem, and I met at Cairo University in 2017, where we completed our Ph.D.s that same year. After two years, we got married in Egypt. We wanted to return to the West Bank, but it was difficult to get an entry permit because I’m registered as a resident of Gaza. Ultimately, we managed to get the permit, and I crossed Allenby Bridge on 28 August 2019. We arrived in Bethlehem, and on 9 October 2019 filed an application to change my address from Gaza to Bethlehem. The application still hasn’t been approved. We lived in Bethlehem for two years. I worked as a lecturer at Palestine Ahlia University. On 15 December 2020, I gave birth to our daughter, Misk, in Bethlehem. Because the address on my ID card is in Gaza, every time we drove to the university was hell. We took detours to avoid checkpoints, and were constantly afraid soldiers would arrest me or deport me back to Gaza without the baby. We were afraid the army would raid our house, as they sometimes do in our neighborhood. In May 2021, my father, Khalil Abu Hamadah (74), fell ill and I was afraid he would pass away before I could say goodbye to him. I decided to go to Gaza to visit him and took Misk with me. We entered Gaza without prior coordination, and got in easily because I’m registered as a resident there. I only found out later that Misk’s address is also listed in Jabalya, Gaza, and not in Bethlehem. My sons from my previous marriage, Muhammad (16) and Majd (13), live in Gaza. It had been nine years since I left Gaza to study in Cairo, and they stayed with their father, my ex-husband. When I lived in Bethlehem, I tried calling them almost every day, but he wouldn’t let me talk to them. I sometimes managed to communicate with them through my sister Najwa. Since I returned to Gaza, I’ve been seeing them twice a week. The condition Majd has had in his left ear from a young age has grown worse. His ossicles are eroding, and he has trouble hearing from his right ear. He needs surgery to remove part of the ossicle. Almost a year ago, on 31 August 2021, I heard on the news that Israel was going to approve changes of address. I applied to the Ministry of Civil Affairs in Gaza, and my husband applied at the same time to the DCO in Bethlehem. I also submitted a request to return to work at the university in Bethlehem, after the management contacted the DCO on 10 September 2021. On 7 October 2021, the DCO informed me that my request was denied as it did not meet the criteria. I filed another application on 10 October 2021 and got a security refusal on 24 October 2021. My name wasn’t on the list of 4,000 applications for changes of address by Gaza residents that Israel approved. I didn’t receive any response to my last application, from 28 October 2021. Later, on 21 June 2022, I filed to change Muhammad’s address from Gaza to Bethlehem, so he can move in with me as soon as my application to return is granted. Majd doesn’t have an ID card yet, so there’s no need to submit an application for him. I lost my job at the university and can’t find work in Gaza. My husband sends us money so I can provide for Misk, but our relationship is suffering and I feel that everything is falling apart, that my life is torn between Gaza and the West Bank. I live under terrible pressure and don’t know how much longer I can go on like this. People in Gaza look down on me because I’m far from my husband, and everyone keeps asking me why I live like this. It’s been over a year since Misk and I returned. She was five months old at the time,and since then, she’s only seen her father on the phone screen. Sometimes she grabs the phone from my hand and calls out to him: “Baba! Baba!”. My top priority now is to get Majd the best medical care and go back with Misk to my husband and to my work in Bethlehem. I ask all relevant parties to pressure Israel to help the women who are stuck in Gaza. I know of hundreds of similar cases. In what country does a woman live with her children in one place while her husband lives in another? Update: Marwah Abu Hamadah managed to book her son Majd an appointment to be treated in Bethlehem on 17 August 2022 and receive entry permits for him, her daughter Misk and herself.
13 November 2022
