Aucklander Minas Al-Ansari is trying to get her family from Gaza to New Zealand, including her eight-year-old cousin Azmi. Photo: Supplied
Government briefings indicate Immigration Minister Erica Stanford asked for an estimate of Palestinians who might apply to join their families in New Zealand if the government opened a Ukraine-style visa category. But Cabinet chose to retain the current settings.
Immigration figures show 16 Palestinians and 90 Israelis arrived in New Zealand since October 2023.
Campaigners have been asking the government for a humanitarian visa, after the Hamas attack on Israel on 7 October prompted retaliation by Israel, including bombings that have caused mass casualties, evacuations and starvation in Gaza.
In the meantime, they are only able to apply for visitor visas to see relatives living in New Zealand.
Figures show similar numbers of Israelis and Palestinians have had visa applications turned down since October - but that represented a larger proportion of Palestinians, who submitted 90 applications, compared to almost 500 Israeli applications.
Aucklander Minas Al-Ansari said she was desperate to get her aunt, uncle and their five children to safety.
She has been fundraising to get them food and help them rebuild their home.
Her 21-year-old cousin is in the third year of medical studies and she wants her to continue studying abroad.
Al-Ansari said she would love to bring them all out but worried about the likelihood, with visas alone costing $1500 for the seven relatives, on top of the costs of leaving Gaza, about $8000 per person, and flights.
"I think about it every single day, just to give them another chance on life, to have their children grow up in a safe place for a change. My aunt is just the sweetest, kindest, most giving, funny, she's just so beautiful.
"I just can't justify spending $1500 on paperwork where I could put that money towards really helping them arrive here and get them started, on their feet, instead of applying for a visa and risking a very high likelihood of it being declined.
"They don't really have anything to prove that they're going to go back. So I don't know how their visitor visa would be even considered, and if they would get accepted."
Minas Al-Ansari and her daughter Maya. Photo: Supplied
The last time Al-Ansari spoke to her aunt was after an Israeli attack in Rafah. She said they had been on the move since their own home was destroyed. The family was focused on survival, fundraising and support, passing on updates via a cousin.
"We don't know where they are, we just want to know that they're alive. When my cousin does get hold of them, she just says 'they're alive, they're surviving, please pray for them and pray for this all to end'.
"I think last week, we got some videos, and my aunt was heating bread. She said that all they had was flour, and they were grateful for the flour, and they were just living on bread. She said that they got some wood from the rubble of the house to get the fire going and she was heating the bread on the fire."
With no clean water or clothing, and precarious food, shelter and safety, they were "living on prayers", she said.
"Every time they think the situation can't get worse, it does.
"Just like every Gazan, they're living in fear, they're living in hope. But it's like living an actual nightmare."
Government decisions on special visas
Immigration Minister Erica Stanford asked for advice in February on the number of Palestinians in New Zealand, and projected numbers of overseas family members.
Those numbers showed 700 visa holders from Palestine in New Zealand, although that does not include dual citizens, nor people who have lived in New Zealand for a significant period of time.
Based on those numbers, INZ said it provided Stanford with three estimates of the possible number of offshore close family member: 3545 based on average household size, 1063 if the visa was open to parents only and 1772 if it included other relatives.
The latter most closely mirrors the Special Ukraine Visa, which included eligible parents, grandparents, adult siblings or adult children, and their immediate families.
The estimate for Ukraine had been up to 4000 people applying, but fewer did - by last August, 1510 visas had been granted and about 340 people had arrived and stayed.
Stanford said in a written statement it was not appropriate to directly compare the numbers of Palestinian nationals and Israelis who had been approved.
"This is because they are subject to two entirely different processes with Palestinian nationals requiring a visa and Israeli citizens having reciprocal visitor visa waiver status (in the same way that New Zealand citizens are able to travel to Israel visitor visa free).
"Immediate family members of Palestinian New Zealanders should apply for a visitor visa and their applications will be prioritised. Applications can also be made for extended relatives so that their individual circumstances can be considered.
"INZ have the ability to take operational decisions to waive usual visitor visa criteria in exceptional circumstances. I am not involved in that process."
The humanitarian situation in Gaza was heartbreaking, she said, "as are the situations of all other people in the world caught in conflict and war".
Cabinet would have to agree to a new visa, she said.
"All decisions of this nature are context dependent. In light of the evolving situation in Gaza, in mid-May I provided an update to Cabinet on visa applications from Gaza and sought their views. Following that discussion, the current settings have been retained."
Immigration New Zealand (INZ) said to ensure consistency and priority allocation among applications from Palestinians and Israelis, visitor visas were processed in the same office.
'Dehumanisation of Palestinians'
Justice for Palestine co-convenor Samira Zaiton said the government was "hypocritical" because Stanford had criticised the then Labour government for how long it took to open the special Ukraine visa.
"There's a far smaller number of Palestinians that have applied for visas to New Zealand than there has been for Israel. That could in part be because Palestinians know how much harder it is to gain visas and access to New Zealand because there is no visa category. So I'm disappointed in it.
"I think that the numbers of Palestinians who would be applying and trying to seek refuge in New Zealand as a safe haven would be larger if the government took action."
Zaiton said families were desperate to save their relatives.
"Israel has a visa waiver for coming into New Zealand, they have access to technology to apply, they've got access to passage, and they've also got access to being regarded as human beings, unlike Palestinians.
"One of the core steps that has enabled genocide has been the dehumanisation of Palestinians. So denying Palestinians coming into New Zealand, who are trying to escape death and are trying to find a way for life, is cruel, callous and dehumanising," Zaiton said.
Visa application approvals and rejections:
- From Israelis: 496 visa applications, 380 approved, 16 declined, and the remainder in progress or withdrawn. Population: 9.56 million.
- From Palestinians: 97 applications, 61 approved, 18 declined and the remainder are either in progress or have been withdrawn. Population: 5m.
Of the approved applications 90 Israelis and 16 Palestinians have arrived in New Zealand.