She wants to leave but dares not, fearing that her return will be barred. He yearns for his wife and children to come home, trapped on the other side of Gaza’s walled high-tech frontier. Both are victims of Israel’s control of the Palestinian population register.

Under the 1993 Oslo accords, which charted a phased route to Palestinian statehood, any addition to the Palestinian population register was subject to Israeli approval. But Israel has frozen the register since the outbreak of the second intifada in 2000, leaving tens of thousands of ordinary people in Gaza, like Mirvat al-Nahal, a lawyer, and Ahmad el-Akad, an ophthalmologist, in limbo. Their plight is highlighted in a forthcoming report from Gischa, the Israeli Legal Centre for Freedom of Movement.

Ms al-Nahal was born in exile in Libya and was 19 when her parents took her home to Rafah, on the Gaza-Egypt border. “I finished high school here, then studied law at El Azhar University. But for the past 13 years I have never left Gaza because I have no official identity. My father was told he had no right to an identity card because he left Palestine before the Israelis invaded Gaza in 1967. Until a year ago my father couldn’t even travel to Gaza City, 45 minutes away, because he was afraid the Israelis would catch him at a checkpoint and deport him.

“My mother Nadia’s family also left and live in Syria. When we lived in Libya we could visit them, but since 1993 she has not seen them. In 2005 Nadia had a stroke and needed medical facilities that were only available in Ramallah.

“She was refused the right to cross to the West Bank because she had no identity card. She died while we were trying to arrange for a specialist to come from Ramallah to treat her.

“My children Taysir [an 8-year-old boy], Shahed [a 5-year-old girl] and Seifildeen [a 3-year-old boy] can travel because my husband has his Gazan identity papers and they are included under his name. But I am deprived of all my rights as a citizen. My husband’s ID card says he is married but the box for ‘spouse’s name’ is blank. I want to develop my career. I have been offered scholarships to do my masters abroad but if I take them I know that I will be refused entry on my return.”

Dr el-Akad left Gaza in 1990 to study ophthalmology in Tomsk at the University of Siberia. He met Elena, a doctor, and in 1994 they married. A year later their son Mostafa was born. In 2000 he applied for a family visit visa so that they could return to Gaza. They got jobs, Elena as a paediatrician in the Palestinian Ministry of Health and Dr el-Akad in the private sector. In 2002 Daiana, a daughter, was born. Elena applied for her ID card but nothing happened.

“You apply through the Palestinian administration but it is up to the Israelis. We waited a long time. We wrote to President Putin, to Arafat, we tried everything. My wife’s father died in 2005 and she was not able to go to the funeral. Last year her mother’s [heart] condition worsened and she was calling Elena, saying ‘I want to see you before I die’.

“She was caught between two emotions, to see her mother for the last time or stay with her husband and children. It was agonising. In July last year we decided that she should go to Siberia.”

At this point Dr el-Akad began to cry. “We have tried everything. My children can come back, but how can they without their mother? It’s not easy to find work for her or me in Siberia, while here she is respected in her profession.

“My children cry when I speak to them. They ask me: ‘When are we coming home? When will we see you?’ I send them $1,000 a month but now I must sell my furniture because there is no work here, the economy is collapsing. I know of people here in similar circumstances who eventually divorce because they cannot get back. I am afraid this will be my fate.”

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