The Gaza Center for Human Rights expressed its deep concern and condemnation of the continued arbitrary policy of the Israeli occupation authorities to prevent Palestinian citizens, including women, children, the sick and the elderly, from returning to the Gaza Strip, in a measure that reflects an escalating trend to restrict the Palestinians’ right to return to their homeland, deepen the state of family separation, and impose realities that would perpetuate forced displacement.
The human rights center explained that in recent weeks it has received an increasing number of testimonies indicating that the occupation authorities are preventing Palestinian citizens from the Gaza Strip from returning to it, through the security rejection procedure by the occupation authorities.
He pointed out that the mechanism used for the return of Palestinians to Gaza is to register their names with the Palestinian embassy in Cairo, or with a private coordination company, and then the names are presented to the Israeli occupation authorities for examination and approval to return, a process that takes several days or weeks.
He explained that the data he documented indicates that the rejection decisions are frequent and sudden, and affect women, children, and the elderly without justification, and without providing any effective legal mechanism to object to them, which turns the right of return to the homeland into a privilege subject to the sole will of the occupation authorities.
Rejection decisions are frequent and sudden, affecting women, children, and the elderly without justification and without providing any effective legal mechanism to appeal them.
He noted that he had documented cases of women who have been stuck outside the Gaza Strip for months or years, after the occupation prevented them from returning to join their husbands and children, in addition to patients who had completed their treatment programs abroad, but remained deprived of returning to their homeland, in extremely harsh humanitarian and psychological conditions.
He emphasized that these testimonies reflect the magnitude of the human tragedy resulting from this policy. He relayed the testimony of (M.M., 34 years old), who said: “I left for treatment several months after the war, leaving behind my husband and most of my children. Recently, I decided to return to be with them. I traveled to Egypt from the country where I was receiving treatment and registered to travel to Gaza. I thought I would only be a few hours away from my children, but suddenly they informed me that my name was not on the list of those permitted to return. I don’t know why.” She added, “I am in shock and my heart is broken because my children have been waiting for me for almost two years.”
As for Mrs. Aisha (42 years old), she says in her testimony: “For months I have been away from my husband and children, despite the danger in Gaza and the fact that death and hunger have not stopped. I decided to return to reunite with my family, which has lost a number of its members, but I was surprised to find that my name is banned from returning. Why does my return to my destroyed home require the approval of the occupation? I feel that our lives are suspended by a decision whose reasons we do not know and whose change we do not know.”
In his testimony about the occupation’s refusal to allow him to return to Gaza, the elderly Abdul Aziz (68 years old) says: “I left Gaza for treatment, and I thought I would return after I completed my treatment. I registered to return, but I was surprised that the occupation refused to do so. What pains me most is my loneliness in my exile and my worry for my children and grandchildren. I want to return so that we can be together in our homeland, no matter what.”
He stressed that this measure, in itself, “constitutes a violation of freedom of movement and the right to return home,” explaining that those who are allowed to return are also subjected to a long series of complex and humiliating security procedures during their return, including lengthy and humiliating searches, repeated interrogations, confiscation of personal belongings, as well as documented cases of arrests of returnees who had prior approvals, in addition to some of them being subjected to beatings, ill-treatment, threats and extortion, including women during crossing procedures, noting that these practices constitute a serious violation of the rules of international humanitarian law and international human rights law.
The center warned that using control over crossings and freedom of movement as a means to prevent Palestinians from returning to their places of residence, and to prolong family separations, cannot be isolated from the broader context of Israeli policies aimed at reducing the Palestinian presence in the Gaza Strip and creating living conditions that force residents to remain outside their homeland or impede their return to it, practices that contravene the legal obligations incumbent upon the occupying power.
