HaMoked in appeal to the Supreme Court: Israel must not deport to war-stricken Gaza a father of two Israeli citizens who has lived for years in the West Bank

On January 15, 2025, HaMoked submitted an urgent administrative appeal to the Supreme Court on behalf of a Palestinian man who has lived in the West Bank for the past 20 years and is the father of two Israeli citizen children who live in Israel with their mother. Israel seeks to deport him to the Gaza Strip based solely on the address listed for him in the Palestinian population registry, which is under Israeli control. The appeal challenges the decision of the Jerusalem Court for Administrative Affairs, issued on December 31, 2024, which accepted the State’s position that the man should be deported to Gaza. The man completed serving a prison sentence, but has remained in custody due to his legal objection to the deportation.

In the appeal, HaMoked argued that deporting the man to Gaza would expose him to a double threat to his life: first, due to the catastrophic humanitarian conditions currently prevailing in the Strip; and second, due to the fact that prior to leaving Gaza, he had been sentenced to death by Hamas authorities. Therefore, deporting him to Gaza would constitute a grave violation of the principle of non-refoulement, which prohibits the transfer of a person to a place where their life or liberty would be at risk. Israel is bound by this principle under both Israeli and international law, which mandate temporary protection from deportation or removal in such circumstances.

HaMoked further argued that deporting the man would result in severe harm to his and his children's right to family life and would severely compromise the best interests of the children, who are Israeli citizens. HaMoked noted that the man’s request to update his registered address had previously been approved but could not be implemented due to his incarceration. HaMoked also noted that on a prior occasion, when the man was imprisoned for unlawful presence in Israel (after entering to visit his children), he was released to the West Bank after serving his sentence. Moreover, in 2023, when he was due for release from prison again and petitioned the District Court against a planned deportation to Gaza, the State retracted the deportation decision, admitting it was made in error, and he was again released to his home in the West Bank.

HaMoked asserted that the District Court’s decision to uphold the current deportation order is fundamentally flawed and causes serious harm to basic rights – primarily the right to life, the right to family life, and violates the principle of the child’s best interests. HaMoked added that the State’s security-based claim against the man cannot justify his deportation to Gaza, given that it concerns an indirect risk attributed to a relative of the man – whose exact relation was not disclosed – rather than a concrete risk posed by the man himself. The Court, HaMoked contended, failed to examine whether there is a “near certainty” that public safety would be harmed if the man were released to his home in the West Bank – the only legal basis for such a severe infringement of fundamental rights.

The hearing in this urgent appeal has been scheduled for January 5, 2026. Until then, the man remains detained – nearly a year after completing his sentence – his fate and life hanging in the balance as he awaits the Court’s ruling.

HaMoked notes that in a similar case, the Jerusalem Court for Administrative Affairs rejected a petition filed by Gisha in a bid to prevent the deportation of a man who had lived in the West Bank for nearly a decade, most of his adult life. In a harsh and formalistic ruling, the Court upheld the State’s decision to deport the petitioner to Gaza upon his release from prison, despite the security agencies’ clarification (provided ex parte) that the alleged security threat in the case was “general” in nature and not attributed personally to the petitioner. In its ruling, the Court disingenuously dismissed the petitioners’ argument that deportation to devastated Gaza would endanger the petitioner’s life. Instead, the Court criticized the petitioner’s "unlawful" presence in the West Bank, and unreservedly accepted the State’s claim that in view of the ongoing war, “there is particular importance in preventing the presence in the West Bank of Gaza residents who do not hold a permit – even those who have not resided in Gaza recently” (emphasis added). An appeal in that case was rejected by the Supreme Court on December 11, 2024 (AP 70079-11-24), and the man was deported to Gaza.