The Supreme Court Hearing of the cases presented by the Association for Civil Rights in Israel (ACRI) and Atty. Andre Rosenthal/Hotline, scheduled for Nov. 29, did not take place. Similar to what happened in the past, the government represented by the State Legal Advisor submitted a proposal for the temporary settlement of urgent residency problems. This proposal was ultimately accepted by the plaintiffs, mainly because it had become evident that the Supreme Court would not rule in favor of radical changes in the government policy of family reunification. 
According to the November `92 agreement, the authorities will issue six-months renewable visit permits to the married non-resident spouses of Palestinian residents and their minor children who entered the West Bank and the Gaza Strip before September 1992. Moreover, the authorities promised to allow the re-entrance of married non-residents who were forced to leave in the past, and to make arrangements so that the non-residents who were forced to leave in the past, and to make arrangements so that the non-resident children of these couples will be able to attend government schools in the Occupied Territories. 
This new agreement does in fact solve the immediate problems of the married non-residents living in the West Bank and Gaza Strip, however, it has several severe shortcomings: 
1) Various immediate family members - and of course more distant relatives - are explicitly excluded from the agreement. All applications made in the framework of the above mentioned appeal to the Supreme Court by Palestinian residents for brothers, sisters, non-minor children, brides and brothers-in-law were rejected on the grounds that they were “hitch-hikers in an appeal referring to spouses only” and that “they were more distant relatives.” These people were ordered to leave the country, whoever remains does so illegally. 
2) The agreement does not cover non-residents who arrive to the Occupied Territories after September 1, 1992, even if they are married spouses or minor children of a resident. The only way for these people to receive protection from deportation is to obtain temporary restraining orders through HOTLINE and Atty. Andre Rosenthal. 
3) Married spouses and minor children of residents who were unaware of their possibility to obtain legal help, and thus followed the authorities order to leave the country when their visit permits expired, will be included in the agreement only, if they succeed to re-enter to Occupied Territories, i.e. if they succeed to re-enter the Occupied Territories, i.e. if they succeed to obtain a new visit permit. 
4) Although the agreement mentions explicitly that the new regulations are to be applied in the Gaza Strip, the local Israeli authorities have apparently not been informed about their content. Gaza residents keep being told that their non-resident spouses and children will have to leave. 
5) The November `92 agreement includes the usual “security clause” which states that renewable visit permits will be issued only after the applicant is cleared by the General Security Services. This clause leaves ample maneuvering space for the authorities, and it is feared that Palestinian political prisoners and their families will be the first victims of this clause. 
... 
7) The new policy which has been implemented since 1984, is based on the authorities’ position that a situation in which every resident of the territories who wants to marry a woman from abroad and bring her inside, or every female resident - or her family - may decide to get married to a foreign resident and bring him - and sometimes additional family members - into the territories, can no longer be accepted. 
The decision concerning who will enter and live in one of the regions (Yehuda-Shomron and Gaza Strip) is up to the authorities, and no resident is eligible to impose on the authorities his personal decision in this matter. 
8) Restrictions on the entrance of foreigners exist in every state, even under conditions of peace, and the matter is even more sensitive when dealing with a territory under belligerent occupation and ruled by military government. 
... 
10) It has to be stressed that most of the applications for family reunification submitted in both regions each year are applications for the unification of spouses of whom one is not a resident of the region. From here it follows that the mere fact that we are dealing here with married spouses cannot be itself make each such application exceptional and special in the sense of the above mentioned new policy [of 1984]. 

Moreover, we want to remind that a refusal to grant the status of permanent resident to a foreign male of female spouse does not mean that the couple is forced to live in separation. A family is such condition has - unless prevented by serious security considerations - the possibility to unite outside the region, by means of the departure of the local resident from the region to the place of residency of the foreign spouse. 

(quoted from Government proposal for the settlement of urgent problems in Family Reunification, presented on Nov. 18, 1992)  

... “As already said, the above mentioned agreement is special and not unlimited in time, and the respondent (authorities) does not guarantee that this, or a similar agreement, will be implemented in the future. The policy regarding family reunification remains unchanged, and should agreements be set up in the future, this will be done in accordance with the specific circumstances of that time.” 
(from Paragraph 17, proposal of the State Legal Advisor)