If You Kill Palestinians Queuing for Food Then You Are Acting in ‘Self-Defence’ But If You Spray Paint The Planes That Help Kill Children You Are A ‘Terrorist’

These Are The Values Of Starmer & Yvette Cooper – Palestine Action Are No More Terrorists Than Were The French Resistance 

Frank Magennis, Barrister at Garden Court Chambers, on Palestine Action

We are not walking but running into a Police State as Starmer and Cooper have decided to make War Crimes legal and opposition to them a criminal offence.

It is not unknown for imperialist countries to define their opponents as ‘terrorists’. The British did that constantly in the British Empire, The Nazis branded the French and Polish Resistance as bandits or terrorists. Starmer and Yvette Cooper are following a well-worn path. As Lord Carrington, a former Foreign Secretary noted, ‘one man’s freedom fighter is another man’s terrorist.’

The Zionists have been calling for months for Palestine Action to be proscribed as ‘domestic terrorists’ and Luke Akehurst’s We Believe in Israel has been particularly active in calling for a ban. Akehurst’s group has been give access to Police and Intelligence information as the state seeks to clamp down on anything that effectively challenges the Zionists and Palestine Action certainly does that.

The racist Commissioner of the Met Doesn't Even Pretend to Political Neutrality 

Since being formed three years ago Palestine Action has been responsible for the shutting down of three Elbit factories and the Israeli Embassy has attempted to influence the decisions of the Crown Prosecution Service and the Attorney-General’s office in relation to prosecutions.

James Schneider on BBC Question Time on Why Palestine Action Should Not Be Proscribed

The move is a further escalation of Starmer's war on opponents of genocide and journalists. The government is actively colluding with Israel to abuse anti-terror laws, with potential prison sentences of up to fourteen years, against those who speak out for Palestinian lives and human rights and against Israel's mass slaughter of almost 400,000 innocent civilians.

In essence opponents of the Government’s foreign policy of support for Israeli war crimes are now being prosecuted as terrorists. Some PA activists such as the Filton 18  have been held in prison for more than a year before they even come to trial, as the government tries to 'make the process the punishment.

This is not a description of Palestine Action but the suffragette 

movement. Peaceful direct action has been historically important in shaping the UK. Here is Yvette cooper recognising that by wearing the colours of those suffragettes.  

The comparisons between the Suffragettes, a cause that Starmer’s bitch Yvette Cooper purports to support and Palestine Action are remarkable.

During their trials, suffragettes—especially those affiliated with the more militant Women’s Social and Political Union (WSPU)—were frequently treated harshly by British judges and authorities. While the language varied, judges framed the suffragettes as criminals, rather than legitimate political activists.

1. Criminal, Not Political

Judges and prosecutors consistently emphasized that suffragette actions were criminal offences, not political protests. Their acts—such as window smashing, arson, or disrupting government meetings—were treated under criminal law, with no recognition of their political motives.

A common judicial attitude was: “You are not political prisoners; you are ordinary criminals.”

2. “Terrorist” Comparisons

While the term "terrorist" wasn’t widely used in the modern sense at the time, some authorities did suggest that the WSPU’s militant tactics resembled political violence or even domestic terrorism. Prime Minister H.H. Asquith and others in government expressed concern that suffragette acts (like bombing empty buildings or attacking artwork) were dangerous and extreme.

·       Media and political opponents occasionally described the suffragettes as hysterical, dangerous, or subversive—language that echoed contemporary fears of anarchism or extremism.

3. Moral Condemnation

Judges often spoke to suffragettes with condescension or scorn, labeling them as irrational, overly emotional, or misguided. Women were frequently told that their actions were unfeminine or disgraceful.

Emmeline Pankhurst, was told that she was “a woman of great ability but misguided zeal,”. Mr Justice Phillimore added:

“Although your motives... are not the selfish motives which actuate most persons… the crime… is in fact a wicked one… it might have exposed other people to the danger of being maimed or even killed… whatever you may think, it is a wicked one… The sentence must be a severe one… three years’ penal servitude.”

Mr Justice Madden sentencing Mary Leigh after the Theatre Royal arson attempt (Aug 8, 1912) said:

“These crimes will cease when they get the vote… If they don’t get it, what are to be the consequences? Crime, crime

Madden framed suffrage agitation as a path to lawlessness.

There is an excellent article in The Guardian by Sally Rooney and surprisingly, there was a brilliant article by Andy Twelves in the Express of all papers.  Which is much like the Morning Star praising Margaret Thatcher.  Wonders never cease.

Ordinary people understand what Starmer and Cooper are doing, which is to attack the most basic rights of protest against the criminality by our war criminal rulers.

We need to build a strong civil rights movement that makes the proscription of Palestine Action unenforceable. We need public declarations by thousands of people that they support Palestine Action and its destruction of Elbit and the military equipment that kills thousands of people and a demand that Keir Starmer be prosecuted under the International Criminal Court Act 2001 for aiding and supporting the commission of war crimes by Israel.

If the proscription goes ahead we need a petition supporting Palestine Action by thousands of people and dare the filth and scum in government to prosecute us.

Things You Can Do

You can sign a petition protesting the government’s action here. 

You can sign a petition calling for David Lammy to resign

for his complicity in war crimes and lying to the British public.

https://www.change.org/p/david-lammy-must-resign-for-complicity-in-israeli-war-crimes-lying-to-british-public

There is also a crowdfunder at crowdjustice.com to fight the proscription of Palestine Action.  

https://www.crowdjustice.com/case/palestine-action/

Tony Greenstein

Why does the Labour Party expel anti-racists whilst Zionist supporters of Israel’s war crimes remain members?

It’s time to expel Luke Akehurst and break the links with Labour Friends of Israel 

Palestinian supporters and anti-Zionists are suspended from the Labour Party at a drop of a hat. They are guilty of what the head of Momentum Jon Lansman calls ‘unconscious anti-Semitism’.

Luke Akehurst has been untiring in his efforts to defend Zionist war crimes 

Yet absolutely nothing is done when supporters of Israel openly justify and support Israel’s murder of over 60 unarmed Palestinian demonstrators this week, injuring over 2,000.  Many of those injured will be permanently crippled because Israel is deliberately using dum dum bullets which expand inside the body.

Labour Friends of Israel's tweets excusing the slaughter in Gaza

We should reflect for a moment that Labour Friends of Israel, Louise Ellman, Joan Ryan and Luke Akehurst are justifying the deliberate and premeditated opening of fire against unarmed demonstrators. It is the kind of thing that fascists usually do yet these racists continue to be members of the Labour Party. 

Of course Israel can do this with impunity because it has the support of Donald Trump and the alt-Right in the United States.  What is outrageous is that supporters of Israeli war crimes have a free pass under the regime of new General Secretary Jennie Formby.

Formby has started where the hated Iain McNicol left off. Mention Israel and a Labour MP and you are likely to be put under investigation. She and Corbyn are running scared from the false ‘anti-Semitism’ allegations made by the Board of Deputies which has this week justified the slaughter in Gaza.

Criticism of Israel and its ideology, Zionism is verboten. But if you engage in any amount of anti-Arab racism then you can be sure that no action will be taken against you.  The continued presence of Luke Akehurst in the Labour Party is indefensible.  Labour might as well admit Nick Griffin of the BNP to membership.  At least Griffin is an honest racist and fascist. 

People should email the Labour Party demanding that action is taken against Luke Akehurst and for the Labour Party to cut off links with Labour Friends of Israel. The far-Right leader of the Israeli Labour Party Avi Gabbay announced he had cut all links with Jeremy Corbyn for ‘anti-Semitism’.  Perhaps Corbyn will have the courage to return the favour? 

Email  complaints@labour.org.uk with copies to jennie_formby@labour.org.uk, corbynj@parliament.uk and leader@labour.org.uk

Only the idiots of Labour's leadership treat the unelected Board of Deputies as representing British Jews

Akehurst, a former member of Labour’s NEC, Director of We Believe in Israel and a prominent member of Labour First has openly defended Israel’s deliberate murder of unarmed Palestinian civilians demonstrating against the terrible conditions in which they have been confined. Akehurst has blamed the Palestinians for their own deaths yet nothing has happened to this racist wretch of a human being. Israel’s murder of Palestinians in Gaza these past few weeks now totals 111, exceeding the 69 who were murdered in the Sharpeville Massacre in South Africa in 1960, which marked the beginning of the world wide anti-apartheid movement. 

We need to ask why it is that anti-racists such as Mark Wadsworth and myself have been expelled whereas the supporters of Israel’s war crimes have been granted immunity? Part of the problem is that Momentum is led by a racist Zionist Jon Lansman. The other reason is that Corbyn has effectively surrendered to the Right and the Zionist lobby over ‘anti-Semitism’.

An old man is shot

80 Labour MPs are sponsors of Labour Friends of Israel. They are a roll call of the Right – Chuka Ummuna, Jess Phillips, Mike Gapes, Emily Thornberry et al.  When Israel invaded Lebanon in 1982, it marked the break between Zionism and the Labour Left.  Both Tony Benn and Eric Heffer immediately resigned. Today under the baleful influence of Momentum’s dictator, most of the parliamentary left has become infatuated with an Israel which has moved yet further to the racist right. 

When you have the Defence Minister of Israel, Avigdor Lieberman, talking about cutting off the heads of Palestinians and wanting to drown Palestinian prisoners in the Dead Sea and when his deputy, Eli Dahan, describes Palestinians as ‘animals’ and sub-humans one has to ask why it is that people like Labour’s Shadow Foreign Secretary Emily Thornberry continue to give cover to a state every bit as racist as White South Africa.

The attack on Gaza city in 2014

Even by Israel’s abysmal standards of murder and child abuse, this week’s events were horrific.  Amongst those murdered were children and an 8 month old ‘terrorist’ baby.

The thoughts of Israel’s apologists in the Labour Party were with the murderers and Israeli ‘democracy’. It was all the fault of Hamas thus denying any agency to those who died.  Those who died were merely puppets.  Zionism’s ventriloquists are fond of talking about conspiracy theories but there is no greater conspiracy theory than the idea that Hamas were able to gather thousands of people near the fence with Israel knowing full well they could be killed.

Hamas is a conservative Islamic organisation, elected by the Palestinians. Despite being vilified as a genocidal, anti-Semitic, terrorist organisation, it is none of these things. The history of the Israeli state is a history of a succession of enemies who have been demonised. From the ‘new Hitler’ Nasser in the 1950’s to that other ‘Hitler’ Yasser Arafat. 

What the Akehursts and the Israeli propagandist will never tell you is that Hamas was the creation of Israel in an attempt to undermine the secular nationalists of the PLO.

Other lies include the allegation that the Palestinians were seeking to break through the ‘borders’ of Israel.  It is a lie because Israel is unique in having never defined borders.  It is an expansionist settler state whose ideology, the biblical land of Israel extends far beyond Israel’s current borders.

Israel’s real fear is the return of the refugees which would upset the demographic majority of Jews in the ‘Jewish’ state. The fiction of Israel as a democratic state can only be preserved by preventing those in Gaza and the West Bank being Israeli citizens and having a vote.  That is the role of the fiction of a ‘peace process’.

Israel is in occupation of Gaza and its people have every right to want to return to Israel from where they were expelled, especially since Israel’s blockade has made Gaza virtually unliveable in with the water toxic and undrinkaeble.  It is also in accord with UN Resolution 194.

An injured woman

You can read Akehurst’s despicable justifications for what happened in these articles, Update on Gaza border crisis and Please email your MP about Hamas and the Gaza border

Below is an excellent article by Leon Rossellson, the famous Jewish socialist folk singer.

GAZA

 “I don’t believe in liberation — I believe in ending the apartheid system in Israel, like the end of the apartheid system in South Africa, and we all live in one democratic state.”
 Ahmed Abu Artema, organiser of the Great March of Return, as reported in the Guardian 6 April 2018.

In 2007, I wrote a song called The Third Intifada. It’s been eerie in the last few weeks watching something very like the scenario in my song, albeit in a different context, being enacted on Gaza’s border with Israel. But the reality has been more horrific than anything I envisaged. In Gaza the slaughter was premeditated and calculated. The snipers were primed to kill. They had their orders. They used the protesters, men women, children, for target practice. According to the latest reports, 109 Palestinians — including children, one an 8 month old baby — have been killed and over 6,000 wounded, including nearly 1000 children. The wounds were particularly debilitating because Israeli soldiers used dumdum bullets which expand when they enter the body. 

The bullets used are causing injuries local medics say they have not seen since 2014. The entrance wound is small.The exit wound is devastating, causing gross comminution of bone and destruction of soft tissue.

The UN has stressed that “lethal force may only be used as a measure of last — not first — resort, and only when there is an immediate threat to life or serious injury. An attempt to approach or crossing or damaging the fence do not amount to a threat to life or serious injury and are not sufficient grounds for the use of live ammunition.”

What has been the response of the Israeli authorities to the charge that their soldiers have committed war crimes? Predictably they lied. They lied shamelessly and with the confidence born from years of practice. Yes, these protesters, led by Hamas, yes, even the children and the 8 month old baby, were on the verge of tearing down the fence and swarming into Israel, overrunning the Israeli army and massacring untold thousands of Israelis, yes, and all with their bare hands.

Protester near Gaza border

“The mere fact of approaching a fence is not a lethal, life-threatening act, so that does not warrant being shot. It seems that anyone is liable to be shot dead.” (Rupert Colville, spokesman for the UN high commissioner for human rights).

And here is the Israeli Ambassador, Mark Regev, formerly Israel’s propaganda chief and long-time apologist for Israel’s crimes, explaining to the BBC: We use live fire only in a very measured way, in a very surgical way and only when there is no alternative.

6,000 wounded? 106 dead? Measured? As for the BBC itself, that model of fair and balanced reporting, I rarely listen nowadays but did catch Jeremy Bowen talking about the ‘violence’ on the Gaza border. No mention of how many Palestinians had been killed. No mention of Palestinians being killed and wounded at all. Just ‘violence’.

And what about the collection of ghouls who proudly dub themselves Labour Friends of Israel? How have they managed to defend this latest atrocity?

How pathetic. They didn’t even have the imagination to concoct their own lie but simply swallowed the steaming pile emanating from the bowels of the Israeli Embassy and regurgitated it.

How can anybody be a friend of a state that turns its sons into murderers?  (continued go to original)

Luke Akehurst – Is there any war crime or atrocity that this shill won’t justify?

Akehurst Justifies Israel’s Terror in Gaza and its Murder of Unarmed Demonstrators

Dylan Thomas wrote that ‘the hand that signed the paper felled a city’.  I doubt if Luke Akehurst, a former member of Labour’s National Executive Committee and an aspirant to succeed John Spellar as MP for Warley, has killed anyone. However he has done his best to encourage, support and justify the murder of innocent Palestinians.  Those legally minded may recall that Julius Streicher, the Editor of Der Sturmer, was hanged at Nuremburg for Crimes Against Humanity, even though he too was not judged to have personally killed anyone.  Indeed the charge was invented to convict him.

Luke Akehurst’s willingness to justify and gather support for Israel’s use of live fire against peaceful demonstrators makes him no different from the war criminals who pull the trigger.  If anything he is more culpable than the snipers who execute their orders.

Luke Akehurst has no problem with Israel using live ammunition against these demonstrators

I suggest that people use the link on Akehurst’s ‘We Believe in Israel’ site to email MPs, but delete the Zionist message in the letter and explain why you are opposed to Israel’s war criminals shooting unarmed demonstrators and explaining why you have deleted Akehurst’s previous message.  Akehurst also asked that people contact him with responses.  Maybe you might like to send this wretch a response!

luke@webelieveinisrael.org.uk

The Blockade on Israel's Heart

Luke Akehurst is Director of We Believe in Israel and a stalwart of Labour First.  A former arms salesman Akehurst sent out an email at the weekend asking people to send an identikit letter to MPs defending Israel’s gunning down and murder of 27 unarmed Palestinians and the wounding of over one thousand more in Gaza during the last week.  Every last lie and pretext, every dishonest subterfuge and circumlocution was used as Akehurst blamed the people who had been murdered or wounded.

Akehurst’s email was entitled:  ‘Please email your MP to ask them to condemn Hamas for provoking violence on the Gaza border.’  You would be forgiven for having thought that Hamas had done the shooting.  Perhaps Hamas had kidnapped thousands of Palestinians and forced them to march to the fence surrounding Gaza? 

an injured demonstrator is carried away

The Zionists are fond of accusing Palestinian supporters are engaging in ‘conspiracy theories’ but could there be any more malign and sinister conspiracy theory than depicting the demonstrators in Gaza as puppets of Hamas?  The idea that people willingly walk into a free fire zone because Hamas has told them to is reminiscent of the darkest days of the British Empire when hundreds of demonstrators were mowed down by the British at Amritsar.

Akehurst has the racist mindset of all apologists for colonialists.  The indigenous people only rise up against those who have dispossessed them because they are put up to it by ‘others’.  They are too uncivilised and child-like to have a mind of their own.  This is classic Kipling territory.

Contrast Akehurst’s wretched racism with Gideon Levy’s heart felt words in Ha’aretz yesterday:

It’s hard to understand how one can look at tens of thousands of people in their cage and not see them. How is it possible to look at these protesters and not see the disaster wrought first and foremost by Israel?

B'tselem, an Israeli human rights group issued a call to soldiers not to fire on unarmed human beings bringing down threats of prosecution on its head.  But Akehurst isn’t in the business of human rights but defending Zionism and Jewish supremacy in Israel.

If the Labour Party is seriously concerned about racism, as opposed to the fake anti-Semitism it embroils itself in, it would immediately suspend Luke Akehurst for his anti-Palestinian racism. 

By way of contrast Jeremy Corbyn sent a good message to the 2,000 plus demonstration outside Downing Street at the weekend.  It is actions such as this which lie behind the fake anti-Semitism campaign and which guarantee why this particular show is set to run and run.

Jeremy Corbyn speech

I have asked for this statement to be read at today's demonstration supporting the Palestinian people in Gaza:

The killing and wounding of yet more unarmed Palestinian protesters yesterday by Israeli forces in Gaza is an outrage.

The majority of the people of the Gaza Strip are stateless refugees, subject to a decade long blockade and the denial of basic human and political rights. More than two thirds are reliant on humanitarian assistance, with limited access to the most basic amenities, such as water and electricity.

They have a right to protest against their appalling conditions and the continuing blockade and occupation of Palestinian land, and in support of their right to return to their homes and their right to self-determination.

Firing live ammunition into crowds of unarmed civilians is illegal and inhumane and cannot be tolerated.

We stand in solidarity with the Israelis who have taken to the streets this last week to protest their government’s actions.

The silence from international powers with the responsibility of bringing a just settlement of the Israel-Palestine conflict must end.

The UK government must support the UN Secretary-General’s call for an independent international inquiry into the killing of protesters in Gaza and review the sale of arms that could be used in violation of international law.

The events in Gaza and the threat of renewed conflict underlines the urgent necessity of genuine negotiations to achieve a viable two-state settlement that delivers peace, justice and security to both Palestinians and Israelis.

See also Corbyn faces down the smears and blasts Western silence as Israel kills more Palestinians

Israel and Occupied Palestinian Territories - Amnesty International Statement (excerpts)

The Israeli occupation of Palestinian territory (the West Bank including East Jerusalem and the Gaza Strip) is in its fifth decade and the undercurrent of violence and inherent abuses of fundamental human rights and disregard for international law inherent in any long-standing military occupation is presented by both sides. Both Israeli and Palestinian civilians continue to bear the brunt of the violence in the region.

Human rights violations by Israeli forces in the Occupied Palestinian Territories (OPT) have included, but are not limited to, home demolitions and the forced eviction of Palestinian families; punitive arrests, unfair trials, ill-treatment and torture of detainees and the use of excessive or lethal force to subdue nonviolent demonstrations as well as the use of restrictive legal means. In contravention of international law, Israel continues to build parts of the wall/fence in the OPT, expand settlements and use draconian restrictions on the movement of Palestinians with some 600 roadblocks and checkpoints. Amnesty International is also concerned about discriminatory policies affecting access to water for Palestinians.

In areas under control of the Palestinian Authority, concerns include, but are not limited to, excessive use of force, arbitrary arrests, ill-treatment, torture and the use of administrative detention to jail individuals without charge or trial. Some detainees also do not receive adequate medical attention.

A ceasefire between Israeli forces and Palestinian armed groups in the Gaza Strip in effect since 2009 has been generally respected. The Gaza Strip has been under increasing restrictions since 2005, when Israel unilaterally pulled troops and settlers out of the strip. June 2007, restrictions tightened to an almost air-tight blockade, deepening the hardship there and virtually imprisoning the entire population of 1.6 million.

Israel maintains effective control over Gaza, controlling all but one of the crossings into the Gaza Strip, the airspace, territorial waters, telecommunications and the population registry which determines who is allowed to leave or enter Gaza. Therefore, Israel is still considered the occupying power and is responsible for the welfare of the inhabitants in the strip under international humanitarian law.

Israeli authorities rejected or delayed hundreds of permit applications to leave Gaza by Palestinians requiring specialist medical treatment; a few died as a result. Most of Gaza's inhabitants depend on international aid, which is severely hampered by the blockade. In May 2010, Israeli forces killed nine men aboard an aid flotilla in international waters that was challenging the blockade's legality.

Palestinian photojournalist Yaser Murtaja soon after he was shot in the chest during clashes at the Gaza border Friday April 6, 2018.IBRAHEEM ABU MUSTAFA/רויט

Palestinian journalist Yaser Murtaja was sh ot in the chest and died despite wearing a clearly visible press jacket

Israel claims to have Gaza are just one more lie

In 2005 Israel pulled out its troops from Gaza.  Not in order to allow the people of Gaza to live their own lives in peace but in order to better control them from the outside.  Gaza was turned into an open air prison, an area in which to test different weaponry, a live firing range.

As Amnesty International maintains above, in terms of international law Israel is the occupying power, preventing access to the territory by sea, air and land.  It maintains a Population Registry and uses this to control who goes in and out.

The extent to which Israel maintains control is shown by the following story in Ha’aretz.  A Palestinian couple based in Germany want to marry in the West Bank where the man’s family is.  Although the bride, Abu Nada, has lived in Germany for over a decade, Israel has her still registered as living in Gaza.  Gazan’s aren’t allowed with rare exceptions to go to the West Bank and certainly not her family.  Israel has therefore, callously and bureaucratically refused permission for them to marry amongst family and friends.  The reasons?  None are given but all this is, of course, done in the name of security.  No doubt the execrable Luke Akehurst would approve.

Israel Refuses to Let Palestinian Couple Living in Germany Wed in West Bank

The Civil Administration says the bride is registered as a resident of the Gaza Strip, even though she left more than a decade ago

Yotam Berger

  Apr 08, 2018 1:37 AM

Ala Abu Nada and Omar Mohsan

Israel's Civil Administration is not allowing a Palestinian couple who live in Germany to hold their wedding ceremony in the West Bank, saying the bride is registered as a resident of the Gaza Strip even though she left more than a decade ago.                                                     

The Civil Administration in the West Bank informed the two that they “do not meet the criteria” for obtaining entry permits, but gave no further details. The couple, who hold Palestinian identity papers and have been living in Germany for years, have postponed their wedding indefinitely.

Ala Abu Nada was born in Gaza and left in 2004 for Germany, where she grew up and now lives. She met Omar Mohsan, a Hebron resident who went to Germany to study engineering, at a Palestinian convention in Malmo, Sweden. Last year the two asked the Civil Administration for permits allowing the Abu Nada family to travel from the Gaza Strip to Hebron so they could attend the wedding.

In a letter, the Civil Administration said that because the bride’s request was denied there was no reason to approve travel permits for the family. It added that travel from Gaza to the West Bank for the wedding of immediate family members is only approved when either the bride or the bridegroom are West Bank residents who live there.

In a conversation with Haaretz from Germany, Abu Nada said she met Mohsan two years ago when she was 18.

“Omar talked to my parents, who live in Cologne, and then we got engaged,” she said. “To this very moment we don’t know why they denied us entry. We only want to get married and return to Germany. It’s my dream to meet Omar’s family and celebrate my wedding there.”

Abu Nada said the wedding had been planned for April 6. She said the Israeli authorities had not contacted her and she only heard about the refusal through the Gisha Legal Center for Freedom of Movement, a nonprofit organization that is helping the couple.

Ala Abu Nada and Omar Mohsan

“I have never been to the West Bank,” she added.

People at Gisha said Abu Nada was indeed registered with the Civil Administration as a Gaza Strip resident but has not lived there for 14 years. She is not requesting exit permits from Gaza for herself.

As attorney Osnat Cohen-Lifshitz, the head of Gisha’s legal department, put it, “You can be an adult American-born citizen but for Israel you remain a Palestinian and that’s how you’ll be treated. You can’t enter through Ben-Gurion Airport, and you’ll be subject to their system of permits. The origin is the dominant factor there.”

According to Cohen-Lifshitz, the difference in this case is that the request is for Gaza residents who wish to enter the West Bank. For the Civil Administration that does not fit any category.

Cohen-Lifshitz says Abu Nada and her family’s requests met the necessary requirements because permits for a wedding of an immediate family member are “on the list.” “It’s one of the main criteria,” she said.

Nidal Mohsan, Omar’s father, said his son wanted to come for seven to 10 days in order to have a party and then return and finish his studies. He believes his son will stay in Germany when he finishes his degree.

“Maybe he’ll come once a year or every year and a half for a visit,” the father said. “You know how it is.”

For its part, the Civil Administration said Abu Nada’s request was received in September and was examined by the relevant authorities.

“Her request did not meet the criteria and the permit was denied,” it said.