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Christmas, take II

Gaza Gateway | December 22, 2011

Last Monday we put up a post about the narrowed criteria for allowing Christians to travel out of the Gaza Strip over Christmas this year, which the Coordinator of Government Activities in the Territories (COGAT) called “easings”.

Adv. Nomi Heger, director of Gisha’s Legal Department, wrote a letter to the Ministry of Defense raising questions about the narrowing of criteria. We can’t tell whether the letter had its intended effect or whether it was our short post on the subject, or perhaps the security establishment’s goodwill, but it appears that COGAT has retreated. The age criterion, which was set this year at allowing travel for those over 46 and under 16, was restored to last year’s age range of over 35 and under 16.

COGAT didn’t bother to post a separate update notifying about its decision to change the criteria but instead chose to quietly alter the original notice posted on its website, the one that reported the “easings” in the first place. It’s unclear how the word “easings” can be used to describe the act of leaving the situation exactly as it was previously. But then again, COGAT is good at coming up with creative uses for this and other words .

Click here to view Google cached version of the original notice, before COGAT decided to change it.

December 22, 2011 - Posted by | Civil Liberties

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