| Residence Issues in the Gaza Strip: A Preliminary Report This report is based on preliminary field work in Gaza City and Deir Al-Balah and Rafah refugee camps, and on 110 cases. Although it is not comprehensive, it shows that conditions in the Gaza Strip are far more complex and difficult, and that Palestinians in the Gaza Strip are far less protected by policies in effect elsewhere.
Until 1967 Gazans were ruled under Egyptian sovereignty; unlike West Bank residents, who were given Jordanian citizenship (it was withdrawn July 31, 1988), Gazans were identified in their documents as Palestinians and were stateless. In 1967 when Israel conquered the Gaza Strip, it forced thousands of young men to leave. Residents of Deir Al-Balah and Khan Younis, for example, report that all men between 16 - 60 were assembled in the center of the camp and town and forcibly driven to the Egyptian border. As in the West Bank, those who remained when the census was taken were issued with Israeli identity cards and given resident status.
A second residence trauma, however, occurred for Gazans when Israel finally withdrew from the Sinai Peninsula and borders were fixed, in April of 1982. Before this time there had been absolute freedom of movement between the Gaza Strip and all areas of Sinai from which the Israeli army had not withdrawn. Although notification was given to Palestinians that they needed to move back into the Gaza Strip to retain their residence, an unknown number, mostly among the poor, did not understand and remained where they were. These abruptly lost their resident status when borders were fixed.
All Gazans without residence rights, except for those who obtained citizenship elsewhere and the very few who obtained family reunification from the Israelis, remain stateless in Egypt, the Gulf, and elsewhere. Who are the victims? 1. Women married to Gaza residents: The protection of residents extended to women of the West Bank by the June 1990 Agreement, was never extended to Gaza. Palestinian women from Egypt or Kuwait married to cousins in the Gaza Strip have never received automatic six-month renewal of their visit permits. Many of them remain in the Gaza Strip on visit permits which expired years ago. Many of their Egyptian travel documents have also expired and they are afraid to try to renew them. Their children face problems when they reach school age. Some do not go to school.
Others among them leave when their permits expire, remain in Egypt for some months and then return, a pattern similar to that in the West Bank prior the Intifada.
Unlike Palestinian women from Egypt of the Gulf, women with Egyptian citizenship married to Palestinians normally enter the Gaza Strip on regular visas. They leave when the visas expire or are not renewed, remain outside until they receive another visa from the Israeli Embassy in Egypt and then return. Their Egyptian passports contain a stamp prohibiting their children from accompanying them to Egypt.
2. Palestinian families returning from the Gulf: The problems of resident Gazans wishing to bring non-resident family members home are complicated, not only by difficulties with the Israeli government, but also by the lack of effective documentation and means of transit. Egypt provides travel documents for stateless Palestinians, not only from the Gaza Strip and Egypt, but also from Syria, Lebanon and the Gulf. These documents, however, do not permit people to enter Egypt itself, unless they obtain a visa. Since the Gulf War, such visas have been virtually unobtainable.
Refusal to grant visas to Egypt not only makes it impossible for non-resident Gazans to return to their families by way of Egypt, but also makes it impossible for them to go to many third countries. Many countries require some guarantee, in the form of an Egyptian visa or otherwise, that the holder has a country to which to return. Holders of Egyptian travel documents have access nowhere (except possibly Iraq).
Unlike Palestinian residents of the West Bank, Palestinian residents of Gaza have little problem in obtaining visit permits for their absent relatives. The permits, however, are useless in practice, since the relatives cannot reach the borders of the Occupied Territories. They are turned back in Egypt or Jordan or are refused visas at the Egyptian and Jordanian embassies in the Gulf States.
Estimates of the number of Palestinians currently in Egypt range from 80,000 to 120,000. An estimated 21,000 Palestinians of Gazan origin remain in Kuwait or in special camps established for them on the Kuwait-Iraq border. Tens of thousands of others remain in the Gulf, many jobless, homeless, and with no place to go.
3. Canada Camp: is a section of Rafah refugee camp which was moved into the Sinai by the Israeli army in the early 1970s. According to a 1985 census, it consists of 488 households comprising 4,739 persons. What distinguishes its residents from others in Egypt is that, due to their forcible removal, it had been agreed that they would retain the claim to Israeli residence documentation.
On April 24, 1982, the border was established between Israel/Gaza and Egypt; it physically divided the camp. Three days earlier, the camp residents had been informed that they would keep their right to move freely into and back from Gaza and that they would be repatriated immediately.
Between 1983-89 no action was taken to repatriate the residents of the camp. The current program of repatriation finally began in 1989, when 20 households were permitted to return to the Gaza Strip. The Egyptian government agreed to pay US $ 12,000 for the buildings which would be abandoned, Israel agreed to provide the area in the Tel Sultan neighborhood of Rafah and services for it. According to the residents, the money paid by Egypt is grossly inadequate to build a new house and to start a new life in Gaza. The Tel Sultan site lacks the necessary infrastructure: streets are unpaved, lighting is inadequate, there are no schools, no telephones, no stores, no medical services.
According to UNRWA, as of the end of July 1992 some 117 households had returned from Canada Camp to the Gaza Strip; some 3,900 people remain in the Camp awaiting their turn at repatriation.
When young women from Canada Camp marry their relatives from Rafah no adjustment is made in the scheduled date of their return. Applications for family reunification made by their husbands in order to bring them into Rafah are usually turned down. |
