More than a quarter of the residents of the Gaza Strip have relatives in the West Bank, and about 15 percent have relatives in East Jerusalem or in Israel. In all, nearly a third of Gaza Strip residents have relatives in the rest of the country, on both sides of the Green Line.

These findings emerged in a public opinion poll commissioned by Gisha - The Legal Center for Freedom of Movement and conducted in September by the Palestinian Center for Policy and Survey Research, headed by Dr. Khalil Shikaki. The poll included personal interviews with 440 subjects, chosen randomly and representing the population of the Gaza Strip.

The poll found that 7.2 percent of Gaza Strip residents have first-degree relatives in the West Bank, 10.4 percent have second-degree relatives, and another 8.8 percent have relatives farther removed in the West Bank. Also, 8.5 percent have close or distant relatives in East Jerusalem, and another 6.7 percent have relatives in Israel. According to the survey, 31 percent of Gaza Strip residents have relatives in one or more of the country’s other areas: the West Bank, East Jerusalem or Israel.

Wedding, death, grave illness

Israel’s movement-restriction policy stipulates that family visits involving the entry to or exit from the Gaza Strip are only allowed to first-degree relatives, and only under extraordinary circumstances such as a wedding, a death or a grave illness. These are also subject to a complex procedure of permit requests. The difficulty is seen in the surveyed subjects’ answer to a question regarding the maintenance of ties with relatives in other parts of the country. About 70 percent maintain such ties, but only 13 percent out of those who do maintain ties meet their relatives face to face inside the country’s borders. About 81 percent of those who keep in touch with their relatives living a few dozen kilometers away are only able to do so by telephone, Internet or mail. Another roughly 6 percent meet their relatives abroad.

According to the Gisha Center, the poll’s findings are a reminder that the Gaza Strip is not a separate region from the rest of the country, and “prove how unfounded the claim of Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman at the Sapir College conference was, according to which ‘there was never any territorial or familial connection between Judea and Samaria and the Gaza Strip.’ According to the Oslo Accords, the Gaza Strip and the West Bank are one territorial entity. Severe restrictions on movement of people between Gaza and the West Bank will not change the facts shown by the poll, which are that the residents of the Gaza Strip and the West Bank share a common social and cultural fabric and that the Israeli policy of separation denies these people their basic rights.”