Article74 Magazine

Salah and Fatima A. are both residents of East Jerusalem and hold Jerusalem ID cards. Salah could not find work in his hometown, but obtained employment as an engineering counselor in Amman. Thus the couple traveled to Jordan. Two of their three small children are registered as Jerusalem residents in Salah’s ID card. The family kept close ties with their relatives in Jerusalem and visited frequently together with the children. They were careful to always to renew their Israeli exit permits so as not to forfeit their resident status in the city.  
On 13 June 1996, the whole family arrived to Jerusalem in order to again live here permanently. At the Jordan bridge crossing, Salah was told that he must go to the Interior Ministry in order to register his youngest son who was born in Amman. At the Interior Ministry, his ID card was taken from him and he was handed a note addressed to the Israeli border police at the Jordan bridge reading, “... the above mentioned have ceased to be residents. Please facilitate their departure.” The family had never been offered an opportunity to present their case or to submit objections.  

Confronted with the growing number of ID card confiscations the local human rights organizations have launched an emergency campaign in defense of the residency rights of Palestinian Jerusalemites: briefings of Israeli parliamentarians, foreign embassies and consulates, meetings with the Jordanian and Egyptian ambassador to Israel and public protest activities locally and internationally may tie the hands of the Interior Ministry clerks who daily reach out to grab another ID card, thereby making another Palestinian Jerusalemite and his family homeless.  

Please address all forms of protest to:  
Eli Suissa, Minister of the Interior, Kiryat Hamemshala, Jerusalem;  
Fax: 02-666 368