Israel is expected to approve legalizing the residency status of hundreds of Palestinians in the West Bank and Gaza Strip, for the first time in 13 years.
These are Palestinians who lack residency status and are not registered in the Palestinian population registry for various reasons. In order to arrange their status, the Palestinian Authority must receive approval from Israel, which is responsible for the population registry.
This is the first step in a number of understandings reached between Defense Minister Benny Gantz and Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas.
In the first stage, the first group of requests will be approved, which will allow the PA to arrange the status of 442 children of Palestinian citizens aged 16 and older, most of whom live in the West Bank. All told, over 5,000 people will have their residency legalized as a result of the approval of the requests.
The PA published a list of names of the people who will have their residency legalized.
The people involved were Palestinians who fled Gaza after Hamas rose to power there, people who married Palestinians, their children and farmers who are not listed in the population registry, said a defense official. The entire defense establishment recommended approving the requests, which will undergo a security check by Israel, the official added.
The last time such a step was taken was in 2007 and 2008, after a public battle of the families and petitions submitted by Hamoked Center for the Defense of the Individual. At the time, Israel gave one-time approval for legalizing their status and family reunification to some 32,000 families – as a “diplomatic goodwill gesture” for Abbas. Since then, barring a few exceptional cases, family reunification in the West Bank and Gaza Strip has been frozen.
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In August, Gantz met with Abbas in Ramallah, in the first meeting between a senior Israeli government official and the Palestinian Authority leader since 2010.
According to a statement from Gantz’s bureau at the time, the two discussed national security, civil and economic issues, as well as the current security and financial situation in the West Bank and Gaza.
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