The NGO Lobby for Palestinian Women’s Rights in Jerusalem had invited the representatives of foreign missions to discuss ways for increasing pressure on the Israeli government to stop the bureaucratic eviction of Palestinian residents of Jerusalem in general, and the confiscation of ID cards in particular. In its invitation, the Lobby had called upon foreign governments to co-operate with the local NGOs to: 
- Obtain an official Israeli statement with regard to its policy of ID card confiscations from Palestinian residents of East Jerusalem; 
- Pressure Israel to stop using Israeli law as a tool for the bureaucratic eviction of its Palestinian inhabitants; Israel must agree to a freeze of the resident status of Palestinian Jerusalemites until the issue is solved in the final status negotiations between Israel and the PLO; 
- Pressure Israel to facilitate family reunification in Jerusalem, especially for persons form the 1967 occupied territories, whose unilateral legal separation from Jerusalem is illegal according to international law. 

The briefing conducted on Monday 16 December 1996 at the Jerusalem Center for Women was attended by representatives of the Consulates of Belgium, France, Sweden, the United States and by the Netherlands Representation to the Palestinian Authority. Lobby members (Alternative Information Center, Bat Shalom, Jerusalem Center for Women, Palestine Human Rights Information Center) raised the issue of the lack of power of Palestinian and Israeli human rights organizations to challenge the official Israeli position denying that policy changes with regard to ID card confiscations and family reunification have occurred. Representatives of the Foreign Missions expressed similar frustration with the persistent denial by Israeli government officials: “It is like you tell your neighbor to stop beating his dog and he simply claims that he doesn’t have a dog at all” said Ms. Kathleen Riley from the US Consulate. While NGOs raised that they expect the representatives of the Foreign Governments in the area to proceed to use more powerful diplomatic tools, the Foreign Missions emphasized that it was upon the Palestinian Authority and the PLO to raise this matter officially in front of Israel and international fora in order to enable Foreign Governments to respond appropriately. 

The meeting concluded with an agreement between local NGOs and the foreign missions to continue their joint efforts for tabling Israeli violations against Palestinian residency rights in Jerusalem on the international public agenda. 

- Foreign missions will continue to address the Israeli government and its Ministry of Interior as well as the international media. They will thereby focus on Israeli ID card confiscations from Palestinian Jerusalemites who are also nationals of their respective country (binationals), as this represents a particular sensitive matter for their governments. 

- Foreign missions will advise their governments to remind Israel of the fact that many of their bilateral cooperating agreements are conditioned by Israeli compliance with international law and human rights conventions. 

- NGOs will continue providing updated documentation of Israeli policies pertaining to Palestinian residency in Jerusalem; special efforts will be made to compile statistical data. 

- NGOs will renew their effort - unsuccessful in the past - to convince the Palestinian Authority and the PLO that now, following the official opening of the final status negotiations in May 1996, it is perfectly legitimate for the Palestinian side to raise issues related to Jerusalem with Israel and the international community. NGOs will insist that the Palestinian Authority and the PLO adopt Israeli violations of Palestinian residency rights in Jerusalem as part of their urgent agenda alongside with other current issues such as continuing and new Israeli settlement construction, the overdue withdrawal from Hebron and the military closure on the West Bank and Gaza Strip.