Ramallah: In a case that has caused outrage against the Israeli visa system, a newlywed Palestinian-Jordanian woman who had been denied the right to enter the West Bank to see her husband while he was alive has now been granted an entry permit to attend his funeral there.
Eman, a Palestinian resident of Jordan was refused a visit visa to attend her own wedding party in her groom’s home village of Beit Reema in Ramallah in the West Bank.
Several weeks later she was granted an entry permit to attend her husband’s funeral after he died in a road accident in Jordan hours after they returned from their honeymoon in Thailand.
Family sources said that Ahmad Al Reemawi, 24, had proposed to his relative Eman, who is not a West Bank resident.
The woman accepted the marriage proposal and the two families decided the marriage would take place in Ramallah, in the West Bank. Israeli occupation authorities stymied this plan by refusing Eman entry to the West Bank, even after the marriage contract was signed.
“The visit visa application was rejected even though the woman was officially his wife,” said Khaled Al Reemawi, a cousin to the couple in an interview with Gulf News.
He said that under laws accepted worldwide, the man had the right to bring his wife on a visit to his own home country, provided that Ahmad was a West Bank resident and holder of an official identity card.
“When the families lost all hope of securing a visa for the bride, let alone her family, the families decided to hold the wedding party in Amman instead,” he said. The couple left for Thailand for their honeymoon after the wedding.
“Upon the couple’s return to Jordan two weeks later, they were in a road accident on their way home from the airport. The husband, Ahmad, died in the accident while Eman sustained moderate injuries,” he said.
Ahmad’s family decided to bury the groom in his home village of Beit Reema and “Israeli authorities granted Eman an visit entry to attend the funeral of her husband,” he said.
“It is destiny, but it should be mentioned that had the Israeli occupation authorities allowed the wife inside the West Bank, the tragedy might have been avoided,” said the cousin, adding that Eman had previously visited the West Bank and on that visit had not violated the occupation’s rules and regulations.
“The woman had not overstayed nor had she done anything that would cause the Israeli authorities to reject a week long visit visa for the woman to conduct her marriage party,” he said.
He said the family regarded Ahmad a Palestinian martyr groom who lost his life “as a result of the brutal and aggressive methods of treatment used by the Israeli occupation authorities”.
