Supreme Court ruling: Widow must be allowed to legally stay in Jerusalem with her two permanent resident children, after six-year legal battle against Ministry of Interior refusal to recognize her as a victim of domestic violence by her late husband

On November 24, 2022, HaMoked filed an appeal with the Supreme Court against the October 26, 2022 ruling of the Jerusalem Court for Administrative Affairs, which had rejected HaMoked’s petition to grant legal status in Israel on humanitarian grounds to a widow and mother of two children, both permanent residents of Israel, who was a victim of domestic violence by her husband until his hospitalization and death. It should be clarified that this request concerned rudimentary status, in the sense of being allowed to legally reside in the country via renewable military stay permits (DCO permits), subject to strict annual security checks, issued under the humanitarian exception outlined in the Citizenship and Entry into Israel Law (a petition for the annulment of this law has been pending for a long time).

The woman in this case is a Palestinian originating from the West Bank, who married a Palestinian permanent resident of East Jerusalem in 2001. Since her marriage, she has lived in the city with her children and alongside her late husband’s extended family, including the children's uncles and cousins. Her status was never arranged by her husband, who was addicted to drugs, frequently involved in criminal activity, and abusive towards her and their children. In September 2018, the woman turned to the police when her husband’s drug use required hospitalization. However, she refrained from filing a complaint regarding his violence (as often happens in such circumstances, where a woman without status is dependent on her Jerusalem spouse and lives in a patriarchal, traditional society). The man remained hospitalized until his death in June 2019. After his death, the Sharia Court ruled that the appellant was the sole custodian and guardian of her minor children. However, due to her lack of legal status in Israel, she did not receive child allowances or other social benefits. The family lived in poverty and under constant fear that the mother would be deported, in which case the children would have to either be separated from her or disconnected from their extended family and possibly lose their status in their city of birth.

On November 7, 2019, HaMoked submitted a request to the Ministry of Interior to regulate the woman’s status in Israel on humanitarian grounds. The request emphasized that the woman had been living in Jerusalem for nearly two decades, had no alternative place to live, and that her children, permanent residents who had lived in the city all their lives, were fully dependent on her. In June 2020, after no response arrived, HaMoked was forced to petition the Jerusalem Court for Administrative Affairs for a reply. As a result, in November 2020, the Ministry issued a decision rejecting the request. HaMoked therefore filed a new petition to the same court, this time demanding that the unreasonable and callous decision be overturned, as it ignored the children's best interests and the family’s dire circumstances. Following the hearing held on February 25, 2021, the Court ruled in favor of the petitioners and ordered the Ministry to reconsider the woman’s case, including the possibility of granting her stay permits in the interim until her children complete their education. However, on February 22, 2022, the Ministry of Interior notified HaMoked that the refusal remained in place, and added that generally, the committee advising on humanitarian cases “does not recommend granting a temporary and circumscribed solution, as this may set a precedent for future cases…” and that such a solution was found to be unwarranted in this case.

Consequently, HaMoked again petitioned the Jerusalem Court for Administrative Affairs, but the petition was dismissed, on the claim, among others, that the woman had “taken the law into her own hands” for many years by staying in Jerusalem without a permit, and that granting humanitarian status under such circumstances would encourage others to do the same. The Court also held that being a parent to permanent resident children does not constitute humanitarian grounds – despite the fact that the children have no other parent. Furthermore, the Court ruled that given the father’s death, the fact that the woman had suffered from domestic abuse did not constituted a humanitarian reason. With astounding callousness, the Court even criticized the woman for having failed to file police complaints against her husband, and added that her deportation would not cause serious harm to the children, since the West Bank (“the Area”) is close to Israel.

On April 8, 2025, the Supreme Court unanimously accepted HaMoked’s appeal. In the ruling, authored by Justice Daphne Barak-Erez, the Court held that the appellant must be granted military stay permits, subject to the absence of a security preclusion. The Justices held that the Ministry of Interior’s decision was flawed and warranted judicial intervention, as the Ministry’s humanitarian committee should have given substantial weight to the claim that the domestic violence and neglect the woman experienced throughout her marriage were the reason her status was never arranged. The ruling elaborated on the harsh reality of domestic violence and its consequences for victims, emphasizing that the Ministry should have “given weight to the appellant’s own testimony... which consistently described her past as a victim of abuse”, and should not have insisted on receiving supporting evidence – since such offenses “typically occur behind closed doors”. The ruling also noted that according to past case law, the committee was obligated to consider claims of domestic violence, even when the relationship did not end due to that violence – i.e., when the procedure for granting humanitarian status due to domestic abuse does not directly apply. It was stressed that in this case, the woman was under the control of an abusive partner who had not taken care to resolve her legal situation, and that only after his death, “at the first opportunity available to her,” had she begun taking steps to regulate her status in Israel, where she had lived her entire adult life.

The State was also ordered to pay the appellant’s legal costs in the amount of NIS 15,000.