This is what you need to know if you are a Palestinian refugee in the Netherlands

If you have fled from the West Bank or Israel and recently applied for asylum in the Netherlands, the

If you fled Gaza and applied for asylum in the Netherlands, the IND will not make a negative decision about your asylum procedure. This means you will have interviews with the IND, but you will not be sent back to Gaza during that period and the IND will not make a decision on your asylum application.

If it is clear that you are seeking asylum with individual reasons that have nothing to do with the current war situation in Gaza, the IND may well give a positive ruling on your asylum application,

Do you have an asylum residence permit in the Netherlands and have applied for family reunification for your family members in Gaza? If so, you can ask for your application to be processed more quickly. The IND will now process applications for family members from Gaza first.

However, it is not clear how long such a procedure will take. If the IND decides that your family from Gaza may come to the Netherlands, your family members must be able to cross the border from Gaza to Egypt. There, they must then collect the entry visa from the Dutch embassy to travel from Egypt to the Netherlands. And they may still need to get permission from the Egyptian authorities to travel out of Egypt.

In order to apply for family reunification, you must have a Dutch residence permit. If you have applied for asylum and the IND has not yet approved the application, you cannot apply for family reunification for your family members.

If you have relatives in Israel or the Palestinian territories and want to go there, this is virtually impossible and is discouraged by the Dutch government.

Find out more about your situation below:

The Red Cross can help search for missing relatives in the Palestinian territories. The area is difficult to access and emergency assistance is limited. Therefore, the Red Cross may not be able to help you immediately.