Van der Burg must simply process asylum applications from Palestinians | RTL News

In December, Van der Burg decided that the applications would be temporarily frozen, but according to the Council of State he did not properly justify his decision because he did not base it on the most current information.

On December 19, Van der Burg announced that the Immigration and Naturalization Service (IND) would not make any decisions on applications from Palestinian asylum seekers for six months. Palestinian asylum seekers who may have already exhausted their legal remedies and would have to return would also not be sent back for the time being.

The reason for the decision was the Israeli attacks on the Gaza Strip in response to Hamas’s terrorist attack on Israel in October. According to the State Secretary, the security situation in the Palestinian territories was uncertain at that time and it was unclear how it would develop further.

Situation not uncertain, but unsafe

Some asylum seekers from Gaza who had applied for asylum in the Netherlands objected to that decision. They believe that the situation there is not uncertain, but unsafe and, moreover, not temporary. The State Secretary should therefore simply decide on the asylum applications within the normal period. There is a good chance that this will subsequently lead to a residence status because of the war there.

The Council of State agrees that the information on which Van der Burg based his decision was ‘no longer current enough’. He has not sufficiently taken into account the developments that took place in Gaza from early November to December 19, both the fighting and the deteriorating humanitarian situation.

This concerns a total of several dozen Palestinian asylum seekers, whose applications the IND must now assess. Moreover, the IND has a huge backlog in processing applications.

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