CrossFireArabia
Amid the rubble of homes and the ongoing displacement, an unprecedented humanitarian crisis is unfolding in Gaza. The loss of personal documents, especially identity cards, has become widespread, affecting thousands of families, paralyzing the lives of survivors of the genocide, and subjecting them to a daily nightmare from which there is no escape.
Losing an identity card is no longer simply a matter of losing an official document; it has become an obstacle hindering access to aid, depriving the wounded of medical treatment, complicating the burial procedures for martyrs, and preventing even the simplest transactions, from purchasing a SIM card to registering newborns.
An Impossible Bank Account
Rehab Abu Samra, a survivor of the genocide, tried to open a bank account to purchase her daily necessities, but was met with refusal from the responsible employee because she did not possess her original identity card, despite presenting a substitute identification card.
Rehab told Quds Press, “I tried repeatedly to convince the employee to accept the identification card, but he refused because it wasn’t the original, and because the transaction was official and he couldn’t circumvent the requirements.”
She adds: “When we left our homes, we didn’t think about what we would face today. Our only concern was saving our lives and the lives of our children. Now we are living a nightmare with no solution except for government offices to reopen and civil services at the Ministry of Interior to resume.”
She points out that thousands of citizens have returned from banks without completing their transactions, whether to open new accounts or reactivate their frozen ones.
Job Opportunity Threatened with Loss
Nada Abu Shawish is experiencing the same suffering. She lost her ID card under the rubble of her home and received a temporary one. Despite being offered a temporary job, the Bank of Palestine refused to open an account for her to receive her salary.
Nada tells Quds Press: “I had an electronic copy of my ID on my phone, and I showed it to the employee, but he refused and insisted on the original, according to the established procedures.”
She explains that this condition is impossible to meet, as the civil registry offices are almost paralyzed, and the issuing centers are destroyed or unable to operate, while transactions pile up amidst power and internet outages.
She adds: “I was forced to authorize my husband to collect my salary on my behalf as a temporary solution that allows me to benefit from my employment contract until the ID card issuance crisis is resolved.”
Severe Technical and Logistical Crisis
Ismail al-Thawabta, Director General of the Government Media Office in Gaza, confirms that the civil department of the Ministry of Interior is currently unable to issue replacements for lost ID cards or renew them, despite the urgent need for them in daily transactions.
He says that the ID card issue is “one of the most complex issues” at present, due to technical and logistical reasons imposed by the occupation.
Al-Thawabta explains that the most prominent of these reasons are: Preventing the entry of the specialized technical ink used for printing ID cards, which has high security specifications; the unavailability of the paper used for the cards, which is classified as a prohibited material, similar to passport paper; the absence of the original, approved printing templates due to the disruption of supply lines; the lack of the ID card cover and the inner gel used in its production; and the shutdown of specialized printing presses after they were targeted during the aggression. This is on addition to the damage to the civil registry’s paper archive, which contains verification data and citizens’ photographs, accessing it is virtually impossible.
He emphasizes that these factors combined make the situation “completely intractable” and preclude any swift resolution to the crisis.
Since October 7, 2023, the Israeli occupying power—with American and European support — has committed genocide in the Gaza Strip, including killing, starvation, destruction, displacement, and arbitrary arrests, ignoring international appeals and orders from the International Court of Justice to halt its actions.
This genocide has left more than 241,000 Palestinians dead or wounded, most of them children and women, and more than 11,000 missing, in addition to hundreds of thousands displaced and a famine that has claimed the lives of many, mostly children. Furthermore, it has resulted in widespread destruction and the erasure of most of the Gaza Strip’s cities and regions from the map.
