For Gaza, a Question of Responsibility

On a recent morning, nine students gathered around a conference table at al-Quds Open University, a one-building campus here. They opened spiral notebooks, turned off cellphones and flipped on the large television set at the front of the room.

Lecture notes filled the screen before an insert appeared in one corner showing a man addressing a full auditorium. The professor's talk on medical ethics was being beamed to the occupational therapy students here from the West Bank campus of Bethlehem University, which Israel forbids them to attend.

In one of the cases before Israel's high court, the students have petitioned for the right to cross Israel and study in the West Bank despite their Gaza residency status. Israel's government counters that allowing them to do so would "lead to the conclusion that there is allegedly a legal obligation owed by the State of Israel" to permit Syrian citizens into the Golan Heights, which the United Nations also considers occupied territory.

Israel captured the Golan Heights from Syria in the 1967 Middle East war and later annexed the region in a move not recognized internationally. An armistice ended fighting between the two countries in the 1973 Arab-Israeli war, but Israel and Syria do not have a formal peace agreement.

"Is the Israeli government obligated to permit entrance of residents of the Syrian Golan Heights to the Israeli Golan Heights? The answer to that question is apparent and obvious," the government contends in court filings.

After the Oslo accords, tens of thousands of Palestinians returned to the territories on temporary travel documents from places of exile around the world, with the understanding they would receive Israel's authorization to hold identity cards issued by the Palestinian Authority. The Israeli government allowed the Palestinian Authority to issue the newcomers such cards -- needed to secure travel documents, enroll in universities and obtain medical insurance, among other basic services -- through an annual quota system.

Israel froze the process in the fall of 2000 after the outbreak of the second Palestinian uprising, leaving 25,000 to 30,000 Gaza families in need of identity cards.

Without them, they cannot arrange Palestinian travel documents needed to leave the strip, even for Israeli-sponsored humanitarian reasons. Israel canceled plans to restart the program after Hamas's election victory; the Israeli government now defends the cessation by citing its argument that the occupation has ended.

Last month Riad Zaytunyah, director of the Palestinian Interior Ministry's civil status division in Gaza, began issuing identification cards, but they are not recognized by Israel or foreign governments. Palestinian agencies accept them as valid identification, and more than 10,000 Gazans have applied so far.

"These people were essentially born without any nationality at all," Zaytunyah said.

Gaza's legal status is also of increasing interest to Israeli military strategists, who have relied on long-range artillery fire and ground incursions to counter the rocket attacks and weapons smuggling that have spiked since the army abandoned its bases in the strip.

In the year after its departure, Israel's army launched more than 10,000 artillery shells into the strip in an effort to stop the rocket fire, which last year killed two Israelis. During 2006, nearly 400 Palestinians were killed in periodic Israeli tank incursions.

Israeli officials say Palestinians last year smuggled 30 tons of explosives through tunnels under Gaza's border with Egypt. Some Israeli officers have begun arguing that the military should reestablish a permanent presence inside Gaza, a move that would undermine Israel's claim of having left.

"We left them the option to take a better route, and they chose the terror route," said Maj. Gen. Yoav Gallant, head of Israel's Southern Command. "We have a military solution, if it is needed."

With a ruling in their case months away, the occupational therapy students have looked abroad to finish their studies. Last semester, they met their West Bank professor in Cairo for two weeks of seminars and hands-on training.

There is no occupational therapy program in Gaza, where years of war with Israel -- and, more recently, among Palestinians themselves -- have made the demand for physical rehabilitation far greater than can be met by the one trained practitioner in the strip.

"They say that Gaza is now like Syria," said Mohammed al-Rozzy, 22, who has never set foot on the West Bank campus where he is getting his degree. "But we are Palestinians under occupation."