• Text size  | | |
• Email this document
• Printable version

Palestine/Israel: Whether a failed refugee claimant who is a stateless Palestinian from the Gaza Strip can return to the Gaza Strip without a valid travel document

On 18 January 2001, a representative of the Badil Resource Center for Palestinian Residency and Refugee Rights in Bethlehem, stated that the question of whether such a person could return to the Gaza Strip depends on whether he or she continues to be registered on the population registry of the Israeli Civil Administration in the Gaza Strip. If the person continues to be registered with the population registry, it should be possible for him or her to return, even if he or she does not have a valid travel document. The likelihood of having been removed from the population registry depends on when the person left the Gaza Strip. Before the Palestinian Authority was established in 1994, Palestinians leaving the country were issued with "re-entry permits", which were normally valid for three years if the person left at the border with Jordan, or for one year if the person left at Israel's Ben-Gurion Airport. If a person remained outside the country for a period longer than that specified on the "re-entry permit", he or she could be removed from the population registry and thus be denied the right to return.

If the person had left the country illegally, then the Israeli authorities would have no record of his or her having left, in which case he or she would not be removed from the population registry. They may remove him or her from the population registry if they received information to the effect that the person had left. However, if the person left the Gaza Strip after the establishment of the Palestinian Authority in 1994, it is less likely that he or she would be removed from the population registry, because under the terms of the Oslo Accord, Palestinians no longer need "re-entry permits" (ibid.). The Research Directorate was not able to corroborate this information within time contstraints.

Information on identity cards, restrictions on exit and entry, and the issuance of travel documents for Palestinians can be found in ISR10436 of 25 February 1992, ISR25575.E of 3 December 1996, and PAL31007.E of 22 February 1999, as well as in the entry on the Occupied Territories in Country Reports 1998 (1999).

This Response was prepared after researching publicly accessible information currently available to the Research Directorate within time constraints. This Response is not, and does not purport to be, conclusive as to the merit of any particular claim to refugee status or asylum. Please find below the list of additional sources consulted in researching this Information Request.

Reference

Badil Resource Center for Palestinian Residency and Refugee Rights, Bethlehem. 18 January 2001. Telephone interview.

Additional Sources Consulted

IRB databases

Law Society, Jerusalem

LEXIS/NEXIS

Unsuccessful attempts to obtain information from the following:

Alternative Information Centre, Bethlehem

B'tselem: the Israeli Information Center for Human Rights in the Occupied Territories, Jerusalem

Embassy of Israel, Ottawa

Hamoked: Center for the Defence of the Rights of the Individual, Jerusalem

United Nations Relief Works Agency (UNRWA), Gaza Strip