JERUSALEM: When Israeli Arabs search for a spouse, they don’t just worry about looks, job prospects or future in-laws. They must think about whether their partner will be allowed to live with them.
The problem is — many Israeli Arabs, who are ethnically Palestinians, want to marry Palestinians from the West Bank or Gaza Strip. But relations between the Palestinian territories and Israel are testy at best and violent at worst, resulting in limits that even love can’t overcome.
For the past decade, Israel has largely restricted Palestinians from joining their spouses inside the Jewish state, citing security concerns like Palestinian militants using entry permits gained through marriage to carry out attacks in Israel.
For ordinary people, though, the restrictions have undone countless romances, created stressful living arrangements and frayed family ties.
About 1.6 million Arabs are Israeli citizens. About 4.4 million Palestinians live in the West Bank and Gaza. They are linked by ethnic and family ties, but the lines between Israel and Palestinian areas divide them.
There are no official statistics, but thousands of Palestinians are believed to be living illegally with their Israeli Arab spouses inside Israel, threatened with deportation.
Israel’s Interior Ministry did not say how many have actually been deported, if any, and no one volunteered stories of relatives or acquaintances who had been arrested or expelled.
Still, the perceived threat hanging over them compels the Palestinians in Israel to stay near their homes.
“I’m living on my nerves,” said Sahar Kabaha, a 33-year-old Palestinian woman. After her Israeli Arab husband died last year, she was denied the right to remain in the country, even though her four children are Israeli citizens. She now lives without legal papers in the Israeli Arab town of Bartaa. She does not take her children to a doctor, fearing arrest if she’s discovered.
“All I want is permission to be with my children. They don’t have anybody else to care for them,” Kabaha said.
Critics argue the restrictions discriminate against Israel’s Arab citizens. Israeli Jews marrying fellow Jews living in West Bank settlements do not face such restrictions. Critics say it also discriminates against Palestinians, since foreign spouses of Israelis are eligible for citizenship.
The difference is security aspect.
Israel “sees Palestinians and Arabs as forming a threat to Israel’s security without an individual check, or any ability to prove his or her innocence,” said attorney Sawsan Zaher of Adalah, a legal organization fighting the restrictions.
According to official Israeli figures, some 130,000 Palestinians acquired Israeli citizenship in the decade before the restrictions took effect. Of them, five were imprisoned for security-related crimes.
Few Israeli Arabs want to join spouses in the Palestinian areas, where unemployment is rampant. Israeli law bars its citizens, including Arabs, from living there.
Ban on Palestinians living with spouses in Israel
Ban on Palestinians living with spouses in Israel
US condemns RSF drone attack on World Food Programme convoy in Sudan’s North Kordofan
- Denise Brown, the UN Humanitarian Coordinator for Sudan, also expresses concern over the drone attack
WASHINGTON: The US has condemned a drone attack by Rapid Support Forces on an aid convoy in Sudan’s North Kordofan state that killed one person and injured three others.
“The United States condemns the recent drone attack on a World Food Program convoy in North Kordofan transporting food to famine-stricken people which killed one and wounded many others,” US Senior Adviser for Arab and African Affairs Massad Boulos wrote on X.
“Destroying food intended for people in need and killing humanitarian workers is sickening,” the US envoy wrote.
“The Trump Administration has zero tolerance for this destruction of life and of U.S.-funded assistance; we demand accountability and extend our condolences to all those affected by these inexcusable events and terrible war,” he added.
The Sudan Doctors Network, on its social media accounts, said the World Food Programme (WFP) convoy was struck by RSF drones in the Allah Karim area as it headed toward displaced people in El-Obeid, the state capital.
The network described the attack as a “clear violation of international humanitarian law,” warning that it undermines efforts to deliver life-saving aid to civilians amid worsening humanitarian conditions across the country.
There was no immediate comment from the rebel group.
The United States condemns the recent drone attack on a World Food Program convoy in North Kordofan transporting food to famine-stricken people which killed one and wounded many others. This follows an attack earlier this week in Blue Nile state that injured a @WFP staff member.…
— U.S. Senior Advisor for Arab and African Affairs (@US_SrAdvisorAF) February 6, 2026
Denise Brown, the UN Humanitarian Coordinator for Sudan, in a statement also expressed concern over the drone attack which hit the aid trucks in North Kordofan.
“I am deeply concerned by a drone attack earlier today on trucks contracted by the World Food Programme (WFP) in North Kordofan, the aftermath of which I came across a few hours later, as I left the state capital, El Obeid.”
“The trucks were en route from Kosti to deliver life-saving food assistance to displaced families near El Obeid when they were struck, tragically killing at least one individual and injuring many more. The trucks caught fire, destroying food commodities intended for life-saving humanitarian response.”
Brown added that “Humanitarian personnel, assets and supplies must be protected at all times. Attacks on aid operations undermine efforts to reach people facing hunger and displacement.”
“Safe and unimpeded humanitarian access remains critical to ensure assistance reaches the most vulnerable people across Sudan.”
Since April 2023, the conflict between Sudan’s army and the paramilitary forces has killed tens of thousands, displaced 11 million and which the UN has described as one of the world’s worst humanitarian crises.
An alert issued by the Integrated Food Security Phase Classification (IPC), confirmed famine conditions in El-Fasher and Kadugli, the capital of South Kordofan, about 800 kilometers to the east.
The IPC said that 20 more areas in Sudan’s Darfur and neighboring Kordofan were at risk of famine.
Of Sudan’s 18 states, the RSF controls all five states in the western Darfur region, except for parts of North Darfur that remain under army control. The army holds most areas of the remaining 13 states across the south, north, east and center of the country, including the capital, Khartoum.
The conflict between the army and the RSF, which erupted in April 2023, has killed thousands of people and displaced millions.
