Israel requires all Palestinians to hold an ID card, based on the information in the population registry, which is controlled by Israel.304 Together with the permit regime, Israel uses the population register to control the movement of all Palestinians and to make it very difficult, and often impossible, for Palestinians to visit family or friends living in other parts of the occupied Palestinian territory. This is in direct violation of Palestinians’ right to family life, protected by Article 17 of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights305 and Article 12 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights.306 However, Israel continues to violate this right and deliberately uses the permit regime to keep families apart, which is often done in order to punish entire families if Israel considers just one member of the family to be a threat to its security. Palestinian Couples from Gaza and the West Bank307 Aisha is 28 years old and from the Gaza Strip. She is married and lives in Bethlehem, in the West Bank, with her husband and their two children. Aisha came to the West Bank in 2004 together with her parents through Erez checkpoint after she managed to obtain a two-day marriage permit from Israel. After the wedding she stayed in Bethlehem without having a permit while her parents returned to the Gaza Strip. It took Aisha six years to get a West Bank ID instead of her old Gaza ID, which only allowed her to live in the Gaza Strip. However, although she is now able to live with her family in the West Bank, she is unable to visit her relatives in the Gaza Strip. “I have applied to get a visiting permit to visit my family in Gaza since I got the West Bank ID after six years of marriage. I applied through a human rights organization based in Jerusalem. However, the conditions in which I can visit Gaza are; if a member of my family is in a critical health situation, if I need to attend the wedding of one of my siblings, or if one of my siblings or my parents die. Israel kept refusing to give me a permit until November 2011, when I faked a medical report that states that my mother was in a critical health situation. They issued me a 6-day permit to visit Gaza. Together with my children, I finally saw my family for the first time in 7 years. Since then, I have been trying to get another permit to visit my family, but without success. They told methat I had visited my family once, and that was enough.” 304 Human Rights Watch, “’Forget About Him, He’s Not Here’: Israel’s Control of Palestinian Residency in the West Bank and Gaza”, February 2012, page 3. Available at: www.hrw.org/sites/default/files/ reports/iopt0212webwcover.pdf 305 UN General Assembly, “International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights”, 16 December 1966. Available at: https://treaties.un.org/doc/Publication/UNTS/Volume%20999/volume-999-I-14668English.pdf 306 UN General Assembly, “Universal Declaration of Human Rights”, 10 December 1948. Available at: http://www.refworld.org/docid/3ae6b3712c.html 307 BADIL’s interview with Aisha Nimri, “Palestinian Couples from Gaza and the West Bank”, Bethlehem, August 2015 78