The tortuous process of dealing with Israel’s Interior Ministry and obtaining residency status in the Jewish state is known to many.
And no one deserved that status more than a Palestinian man (whose name is withheld for security reasons) who in 2016 selflessly aided a family of Jewish settlers targeted by Palestinian terrorists.
Still it took more than three years, but finally that man and his wife are able to live and work legally in the State of Israel.
Three years might sound like a long time. And it is, though not when maneuvering the labyrinthian bureaucracy of the Ministry of Interior. The reason this couple received Israeli residency relatively quickly had to do with the urgency of their case.
On July 1, 2016, Palestinian terrorist gunmen opened fire on an Israeli vehicle in the vicinity of the Judean town of Hebron. Inside were Rabbi Miki Mark, his wife Chava, and their two teenage daughters.
Rabbi Mark was killed in the attack, Chava was seriously injured, and both daughters were also hurt when their car overturned. The Palestinian couple in question witnessed the aftermath of the attack, and did not hesitate to aid the Jewish victims.
While the man pulled the surviving members of the Mark family from the wreckage, his wife, who is a medical doctor, began to treat their injuries while waiting upon rescue services to arrive at the scene.
For their troubles, the couple received numerous death threats from fellow Palestinians.
Almost immediately, the couple was granted a work visa in Israel, but that was only temporary, and wasn’t renewed after August 2018. Many Israelis began to campaign on the couple’s behalf, including Jewish settler leaders, and their plight was highlighted by Channel 12 News.
The pressure worked, and last week Interior Minister Aryeh Deri personally presented the couple and their son with Israeli identity cards, calling the Palestinian man and his wife “selfless and noble” for their willingness to save the lives of Jews despite the stigma that doing so carries in their own society.
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