For several years now, the Gaza DCL hasn’t been located inside Gaza [City]. I was at the International Organizations [department], and most of our job was giving permits to employees of international organizations who were asking to enter the Gaza Strip. Sometimes people from the UN, other times the WHO (World Health Organization)… Anybody who wanted to enter Gaza via the Erez Crossing would go through us. There were two offices at International Organizations: We oversaw the people, and there was another office that oversaw all the equipment [being moved through the crossing]. The system was so slow. Say you’re working at the UN, and you want to enter Gaza. You send us [a request for] a permit. It’s online. We print out the request, then take it to an IDF computer and type it all in, print it out again and then send it to an officer, and then we send all the details to the Shin Bet (security service) through the IDF computer. And then when they feel like it, they send it back – entry permitted, or not. There were cases where they didn’t respond for six, sometimes nine months. There was one woman from India who [wasn’t allowed to enter], she’d waited almost an entire year for a permit. Most of the time the Shin Bet would say, “It’s being looked into, it’s being looked into,” and then we’d have a pile of unanswered requests waiting. They would call in every day, the organizations: “Hello, I want to check on a request.” Ninety percent of the time none of us would answer the phones because we knew we didn’t have any answers for them, and also no explanations, either.

Were the delays a result of a bureaucratic failure, or due to an attempt to block certain organizations from entering?Fifty-fifty. If there was someone with an Arab or Muslim name, it was a lot harder to get a permit, that’s for sure. An Arab or a Muslim, even if he was from Croatia, even if he worked for the WHO – they’d have to send in [the name of their] father and also of their grandfather, and if the name of the grandfather was, say, Ahmed, then they’d have to wait a long time to get a permit, and most of the time they wouldn’t get it. And the reason [for that]? That’s just how it is. I remember noticing a particular name, Sheehan – it’s an Irish name, but they thought it was ‘Shahan,’ so they didn’t let that person enter.

What details does a person who works at one of the UN agencies and wants to enter the Gaza Strip have to provide?First name, surname, father’s name, grandfather’s name, passport number, a photo of their passport, a contact from the organization you’re with. If you forget a single one of these things – they’ll send it back and you’ll have to fill it in. I suppose they check all the angles. But if it’s not to their liking – they don’t give [a permit].

Which organizations wanted to work in Gaza?Mostly well-known organizations – UN, OCHA (Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs) – so you don’t even ask what it is, you already know. Here and and there, there were cases of tiny organizations, and we’d need to do some research on them.

Were there specific people or organizations that were barred from entry?There were people who were banned.

On what grounds?It’s the Shin Bet, they decide. I wasn’t given any reasons from them.

Was the entrance limited to a certain timeframe?We would recommend that requests be sent a month and a half before they wanted to enter [the Gaza Strip]. Often they wouldn’t get an approval before they needed to enter, and when they did get the approval it was for certain dates. They needed to specify the general dates they planned to be there.77

And then could they ask for an extension?Yes. In the month and a half when I was there, we didn’t get any answers from the Shin Bet. We had such a stack of papers. Each request could be at least four pages long, and we had a stack. We had dozens of requests, hundreds of pages. There was a period when the Shin Bet barely communicated with us.

Who has the final say, the Civil Administration or the Shin Bet?The Shin Bet, one hundred percent.