A group of Israelis living in Germany are holding a 24-hour hunger strike in solidarity with a Palestinian who has been on a hunger strike for the past month in front of the Israeli embassy in Berlin.
Firas Maraghy, a native Palestinian resident of East Jerusalem, has been on hunger strike since 26 July in protest at the revocation of his right to live in his home town by the Israeli authorities.
In September 2007 Maraghy married a German citizen and moved from Jerusalem to Germany in order to enable his wife to complete her studies.
In May 2009 he travelled to Jerusalem to register the marriage with the Israeli Ministry of Interior, and to request permission to bring his wife and their daughter to live with him in the city. However, he was told by the Ministry that his residency status in the country had been revoked following his move overseas a year and a half before.
He was issued a temporary travel document instead, and told that he could only resume the right to live in the city of his birth if he returned to it immediately, for a minimum period of a year and a half. However, since his marriage was not recognized by the Ministry, he would not be able to bring his wife and daughter to live with him in Jerusalem.
Maraghy went on hunger strike to demand that his marriage be recognized and to allow his wife and daughter to live with him in his home in Jerusalem.
Israeli actions are in breach not only of Israeli law under which Maraghy should be allowed to reside abroad for seven years before his residency rights were an issue, but also of two clauses of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, Article 13 (2) which allows everyone the right to leave any country, including their own, and to return to it; and Article 16 (1) which allows all adults the right to marry and to found a family.
Maraghy is supported by numerous human rights groups in Germany and by the German-Jewish group Jüdische Stimme für einen gerechten Frieden in Nahost (Jewish Voice for a Just Peace), which has sent petitions to the Israeli embassy and to the German parliament.
Background: Palestinian citizens of East Jerusalem
Palestinians who remained in East Jerusalem after its illegal annexation by Israel after the 1967 war were not granted citizenship rights. Instead, they were given a status called ‘permanent residency’, which affords its holder social rights but does not include the right to vote and can be revoked at the discretion of the Israeli Ministry of Interior.
Palestinian residents of East Jerusalem carry neither an Israeli nor a Palestinian passport, and only hold an Israeli identity card. For travel purposes, they must apply for a temporary travel document (‘laissez passer’) each time they leave the country.
As part of a policy known as ‘the silent transfer’ that escalated in the mid-1990s under PM Benjamin Netanyahu, Palestinians who leave the city for more than seven years have their residency rights revoked. In practice, many Palestinians who leave the city for much shorter periods discover upon their return that their right to reside in the city of their birth has been revoked.
Between 1967 and 2008 over 13,000 Palestinian residents of East Jerusalem had their right to live in the city revoked.
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