In defiance of international law, Israel built a wall within the West Bank. The “
permit regime” seems to be the solution Israel has chosen to implement in the West Bank area locked between the Green Line and the Separation Wall, which it refers to as the seam zone. Israel has declared the seam zone a closed military zone and requires any Palestinian wishing to enter it – unlike Israelis or tourists - to obtain a special permit
issued by the army “for different durations, depending on the nature of the request, its purpose and the ability of the DCO to verify its details”.
A high school principal, a father of eight, lives in community of Nazlat a-Zeid, in the Jenin district, close to the
Barta’ah enclave in the seam zone. Between 2008 and 2009, he received permits to enter the seam zone, valid for six months at a time, for the purpose of giving private lessons to high school students living there. When he requested to renew the permit in 2011, the army declined the request several times due to “security reasons”. This rejection was conveyed orally, without a written notice and without holding a hearing in which he would have been able to challenge the security allegations against him.
Paradoxically the security risk the army attached to having the principal enter the seam zone for private lessons, did not apply to a permit he did get to visit his daughter who lives in one of the villages in which he was going to teach. Two weeks after his request to give private lessons in the seam zone was declined, he received a three-day permit “for personal reasons” to visit his daughter.
On June 5, 2011
HaMoked sent the army a request to issue the principal a permit to enter the seam zone for the purpose of teaching private lessons during the summer vacation and in the following school year. HaMoked emphasized that the army’s refusal to grant him a permit due to security concerns is not only illogical in light of the permit he was given to visit his daughter, but it also violates the rights of the man to freedom of occupation and movement, and the right to education of his students who live west of the Separation Wall. A week later
the army responded: “Your client did not request a permit to enter the seam zone after the permit [issued for visiting the daughter] expired. […] I stress that on May 15, 2011 your client requested a permit to enter
Israel as a teacher. This request was denied due to security reasons” (emphasis in the original).
HaMoked contacted the army twice more with a request to issue the man the permit, explaining that the original request was also to enter the seam zone rather than Israel, but to no avail. Instead of processing the request efficiently, the army recommended that the man submit a new request for a permit.
On July 14, 2011, HaMoked petitioned the High Court of Justice to instruct the army to issue the desired permit to the man. HaMoked argued that the school principal’s case illustrates the severe, disproportionate impingement the “permit regime” inflicts on the rights of Palestinians living in the Occupied Palestinian Territories . HaMoked also emphasized that the army’s conduct contradicted its responsibility and undertaking to allow all residents with proven ties to the seam zone to enter it.
Just ten days after the petition was filed, the army agreed to issue a seam zone permit to the man for the purpose of private lessons, valid for one month. In addition, the army undertook to consider issuing a permit for a longer period of time, during this month.
The army did not live up to the timeline it supplied. More than a month after the first permit expired and only after further intervention by HaMoked, the army issued a second permit for a short period of time once again. It was only on December 5, 2011 – 208 days after the request was submitted and 96 days after it made its undertaking, that the army issued the principal a permit to enter the seam zone, valid for one year.
On February 9, 2012 HaMoked asked the court to have the petition withdrawn and for a costs order. After
the army admitted that the principal’s request had been denied due to “human error”,
the court decided that the petition had advanced the issuance of the permits, and ordered the state to pay the petitioners’ legal expenses.
