Israel forms new committee to consider 'family reunification' requests

Wednesday December 19, 2007 10:59 by Saed Bannoura - IMEMC News

Palestinians holding West Bank or Gaza ID cards who are married to or have family members inside Israel have long been prevented from living with their families. But a new committee formed by the Israeli Interior Ministry will look into 'humanitarian cases'.

Palestinian wedding at a checkpoint

The new committee will look into applications for family reunification that have been frozen since 2001, when the current intifada (meaning 'shaking off' in Arabic) began. In 2003, the Israeli Parliament passed the “Citizenship Law”, blocking the entry into Israel of any Palestinian man under 35 married to an Israeli woman under age 25.

Palestinian leaders challenged the law at the time, saying it was discriminatory and arbitrary, and was a type of collective punishment against Palestinian couples for attacks carried out inside Israel by Palestinian fighters in 2002.

Many of the 5 million Palestinians in the West Bank and Gaza have family inside Israel, where 1.5 million Palestinians hold citizenship.

The committee's formation comes eight months after a committee in the Israeli Parliament ordered that an investigatory committee be formed to look into temporary residency in Israel for certain Palestinians facing illness or family tragedies.

The Interior Ministry did not act on the Parliament's directive, however, until the Israeli High Court ruled last week that a committee must be formed as soon as possible to deal with dire humanitarian cases.

Members of the committee include security officers from the Shin Bet secret service, representatives from the Israeli military, and members of Israel's 'Population Administration'.

israel | refugees/immigration | news report saed at imemc dot org