Legal achievement after a battle that lasted more than eight years.. Lawyer Maysaa Abu Saleh Abu Akr secures the right of two Jerusalemite children to permanent residency in Jerusalem

In a prominent legal and humanitarian achievement, lawyer Maysaa Abu Saleh Abu Akr from the HaMoked organization succeeded in resolving one of the most complex and sensitive residency cases in Jerusalem, after a legal battle that lasted more than eight years, culminating in the Israeli Ministry of Interior's decision, dated July 6, 2026, to grant two Jerusalemite children permanent residency in the city where they were born and raised, after living 14 and 15 years of their lives without any legal status or identity document.

The case is considered one of the most complex residency and family reunification files, as it faced complex bureaucratic procedures, continuous procrastination, and contradictory decisions over many years, which necessitated a long series of legal actions before the Ministry of Interior and the courts, until it ended with securing the children's right to permanent residency.

The details of the case go back to two children born to a mother holding a Palestinian identity and a father holding a Jerusalemite identity. However, the father refrained from registering them as residents in Jerusalem before the mother separated from him in 2014, severing his connection with his children. With the deterioration of the family's social and economic conditions, their Jerusalemite grandmother took care of them alongside their mother, while the children lived for many years in extremely difficult social and humanitarian conditions, moving between different care frameworks, without being able to obtain any legal status that would guarantee them their most basic rights.

Despite the clear humanitarian and legal aspects of the case, the procrastination continued for years, which prompted lawyer Maysaa Abu Saleh Abu Akr to continue defending the children's rights through an arduous legal process, interspersed with multiple judicial procedures and intensive legal follow-up, until the final decision was issued granting them permanent residency in Jerusalem.

This decision grants the children, for the first time in their lives, the right to legal residency within their city, to benefit from health, educational, and social services, and to live in safety and stability after many years of deprivation and lack of legal status.

This achievement is more than just a legal victory, as it represents the restoration of basic rights that two children were deprived of throughout their childhood years, and confirms that perseverance and professional legal work can achieve justice even in the most complex cases. It also highlights the prominent role played by lawyer Maysaa Abu Saleh Abu Akr in following up on this thorny humanitarian file until a just outcome was reached that did justice to the children and restored their right to residency within their city.