Notice to Quit
You are married to a Palestinian but you have a foreign passport. You may even have children born in the Territories. But you are denied residency. Maybe you were born in the Occupied Territories (oPt) yourself but lost your residency because they were working or studying abroad in 1967 or through some other pre1994 Israeli policy. You cannot recover their residency.
Israel is refusing to process an estimated 120,000 applications of spouses and children of Palestinians for family unification which would allow them to become official residents alongside their families.
FIND OUT MORE about Residency Rights
Download leaflet page 1 - Download leaflet page 2
Denied Entry - If This Affects You Please Contact Us
Towards the end of 2006 the Israeli authorities stepped up their efforts to ethnically cleanse Palestine of Palestinians. Thousands of foreign passport holders whose applications for residency have been rejected need a visa to stay in Palestine. These visas are usually valid for 3 months and can only be issued by the Israeli authorities.
From November 2006 the Israeli authorities have been issuing many of these visas stamped 'Last Visa' denying these people access to Palestine when their current visa expires. Despite a written announcement on the 28th December 2006 by the Israeli Military Co-ordinator of Government Activities in the Territories, Major General Yosef Mishlav, that this practise would stop it has continued.
The effect of this policy is to split families and to drain the country of skilled people vital to society including doctors, nurses, teachers, students, human right workers and business people.
In order to monitor the situation and raise awareness of this issue we would encourage those living in Scotland who have been unable to renew their visa, who have been refused entry to Palestine or who are planning to travel to Palestine to contact one of the people below.
Confidentiality is assured.
Ruth Clark: ruthclark@onetel.com
Gordon Davie: davie728@hotmail.com
Tom McVitie: tom_mcvitie@hotmail.com
Thousands have managed to continue living in the Occupied Territories with their families on tourist visas valid for three months at a time which they must go abroad to renew. Those who cannot afford to travel abroad become illegal sojourners and live in perpetual fear of being deported, which confines them to their homes. Those who do go abroad have no assurance that they will be allowed to return.
Twenty-seven year old Subha G is one of these cases. Her mother, brothers and her husband all have Palestinian ID’s, but her request for family reunification has been frozen since 1997. "I am seven months pregnant and I am afraid of leaving to renew my visa and becoming stranded outside the country. My whole family is here." Subha said.
This is bad but on 19th November 2006 it got worse.
105 passports that had been submitted for visa extension were returned by the Israeli authorities with no extension beyond the end of 2006, and all stamped "last visa," meaning that there would be no further visa extensions and that the holders of these passports would be forced to leave.
The Interior Ministry and Civil Administration made no formal announcement about a policy change, leaving people returning to discover the situation when they reach the border crossings. Shlomo Dror, spokesperson for the Civil Administration states that those foreign passport holders with family in the Occupied Territories who stay illegally in the country, should expect "tough consequences."
"Life is really miserable, and we can't plan our future anymore," says Nofal who is separated from his wife and four of his children. "We don't know whether to leave or wait for this to be resolved. American Jews can come here, stay and leave when they want. We, as Americans, should be treated equally."
A potential total of ½ a million or more Palestinians will be forced to leave and take their families.
Sam Bahour, 42, a Palestinian-American entrepreneur who has been living in the West Bank with his family for more than a decade, said the policy was harming people like him who had moved to the area after the 1993 Oslo accords to invest and help build the local economy....
"The people contributing to economic stability and investment are being kicked out, which means that the part of society that can help build a modern economy is not going to be here," he said. Threatened are physicians, teachers, professors, students, social workers, and professionals in a variety of fields filling critically important positions in hospitals, schools, universities, and social institutions. They will leave a vacuum in institutions unable to find replacements. This is devastating for all concerned, and has life-threatening implications particularly in the field of medical care. On the one hand, the ability of hospitals in the Occupied Palestinian Territory to treat Palestinians is constantly diminishing while on the other hand Israel’s General Security Services (‘Shabak’) often denies access to Israeli hospitals for treatment.
The U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice and representatives of the European Union have complained about these restrictions.. Israeli officials including Prime Minister Ehud Olmert’s have made verbal promises that the conditions will be eased but foreign nationals attempting to join their families in the Israeli occupied Palestinian territory are still being expelled.
Linda Ali Mahmmud, who is deaf and dumb, had travelled in the hope of spending the holidays with her cancer stricken aunt but was denied entry at Ben Gurion airport on Thursday December 14th,.
"At a time of major Christian and Muslim traditional festivities when families want to be together more then ever," said Anita Abdullah speaking for the Campaign for the Right of Entry to the oPt. foreign passport holders trying to join their families in the Israeli occupied Palestinian territory, including Bethlehem, for the holidays are being denied entry and expelled by Israel.
"Israel is working overtime to create a demographic change in the OPt by targeting the most vulnerable segment of Palestinian society, denying them residency and forcing them to leave," said Basil Ayish, a spokesperson from the Campaign for the Right of Re-Entry.
If Israel’s leaders really intend a Palestinian State to emerge, then why empty it of its people?
FURTHER INFORMATION
http://www.btselem.org/Download/200607_Perpetual_Limbo_Eng.doc
http://cosmos.ucc.ie/cs1064/jabowen/IPSC/php/art.php?aid=41413