Introduction Permit Types and Characteristics With more than 100 different types of permits in 2015, the Israeli permit regime infiltrates all aspects of Palestinians’ lives.5 Permits can be divided into four rights categories and include, but are not limited to: • Civil and political rights including permits for movement, residency, for “closed areas” such as Seam Zones, and travel. • Economic rights including permits for work, farming, trade and money transfer. • Cultural rights including permits for education, worshippers and visiting holy sites. • Social rights including permits for construction, renovation and health. As one can see, permits regulate and interfere with various facets of life, such as the freedom of movement within and out of Palestine; work, development and transporting goods and assets. The permit regime exceeds a mere restriction on - or regulation of - the freedom of movement. Instead, the regime commonly results in the complete denial of access to land, work, worship, health facilities and so on. Permits are used by Israel as a tool or mechanism to maintain many of its discriminatory policies,including denial of family unification or the construction of homes (planning and zoning), or access to land, etc. On one hand, the permit regime could be seen as a mechanism of enforcing other displacement policies, such as discriminatory zoning and planning policies, denial of residency, land confiscation and access of land and to natural resources. However, it also could be seen as a standalone method of displacing Palestinians, as it works to deliberately generate a wide range of unbearable and daily constraints targeting Palestinian individuals, communities and people. Therefore, while it interrelates and facilitates the enforcement of other displacement policies, it infringes political, socio-economic and cultural rights that are not directly targeted by other displacement policies. 5 Chaim Levinson, “Israel has 101 different types of permits governing Palestinian movement”, Haaretz. com, 26 June 2014. Available at: www.haaretz.com/print-edition/news/israel-has-101-differenttypes-of-permits-governing-palestinian-movement-1.403039. 9