Upon the construction of the separation wall in 2003, Israel declared the areas of the West Bank located between the Green Line and the separation wall, a closed military zone. Ever since then, Israel has been implementing a "permit regime" in these areas, requiring Palestinians – but not Israelis or tourists – to obtain military permits if they wish to enter there. The military requires Palestinians to apply for the permit through the Palestinian Liaison Office, which transfers the request to the Israeli District Coordination Office (DCO). There, the military examines the request and determines whether the applicant can enter the area, for how long, and for what purposes.
On December 22, 2011,
HaMoked petitioned the High Court of Justice (HCJ) to direct the military to issue "seam zone" entry permits to two brothers from Qalqiliya, allowing them to help farm their parents' 7-dunum agricultural plot. HaMoked also requested the Court to instruct the military to supply timely, pertinent, written responses to permit applications. The petition followed the prolonged non-response on part of the military to the brothers' requests for "seam zone" entry permits, filed via the Palestinian Liaison Office. In the petition, HaMoked noted that the
military's own procedures stipulate that requests must be answered within two weeks, and asserted that preventing the brothers' access to their parents' plots constituted a violation of their rights to property, freedom of occupation, and freedom of movement. HaMoked also requested an early hearing date because of the daily injury caused to the brothers and their family, and given HaMoked's past experience, that a hearing often becomes unnecessary once the State submits its response.
Two weeks after the petition was filed, the military issued both brothers "seam zone" entry permits for a period of six months. Therefore,
HaMoked requested the Court to erase the petition and impose trial costs on the State, given that it was the petition that had prompted the military to provide the permits. HaMoked also added that the military's recurring deviations from its own set timeframe for response, force HaMoked to repeatedly petition the HCJ, and cause a waste of the Court's time, and of anyone else involved.
In response to the motion for costs, the State Attorney's Office admitted that the military had delayed processing the request of one brother, filed in September. But it objected to the payment of costs in the case of the other brother, claiming that his request had arrived from the Palestinian Liaison Office "only" three weeks before the permit was issued.
On May 14, 2012,
the HCJ ordered the State to pay HaMoked trial costs of ILS 4,000 for the brother who applied in September, and ILS 1,400 for the brother who applied in October. The Court ruled that, although HaMoked had not managed to discover the request's date of transfer to the Israeli DCO, "even if I follow the respondents' method, and assume that the request of Petitioner no. 1 was only filed on December 8, 2011, as they claim, the permit for Petitioner no. 1 was finally issued on January 2, 2012. That is – after almost a month. It cannot be precluded that the filing of the petition [...] contributed to greater or lesser extent to the issuing of the permit, in the manner and date it was issued."
Without abandoning its principle objection to the military's requirement that Palestinian residents seeking entry to the "seam zone" obtain military permits, HaMoked calls on the military to at least uphold its own procedures and timetables, and refrain from causing additional harm to the residents whose lands are trapped inside the "seam zone".
