by Vita Bekker, Foreign Correspondent
Abed and Asma Nasar and their two children live in Jaffa near Tel Aviv. Asma is an illegal resident in Israel and is unable to go out or work. Ilan Mizrahi for The National
JERUSALEM // Asma Nasar is afraid to leave her home. Like many other Palestinians married to Israeli Arabs, the 21-year-old from the West Bank city of Hebron is living illegally in Israel with her husband and two young daughters.
During the four years she has resided in the central Israeli city of Jaffa, she has not worked, remains in the family's apartment for entire days and barely ventures out of her predominantly Arab neighbourhood.
Her husband, Abed, 26, who works at a shawarma stand, said he was afraid his wife would get caught by police and be sent to Hebron. "I'm dying to take her on a trip to Jericho or Tiberias, but it's not possible," he said, smoking a cigarette in the family's living room as his blue-eyed wife sat quietly nearby. "It's like carrying a large pack of [illegal] drugs on you – it's a risk."
Abed and Asma Nasar are only one of thousands of mixed Israeli-Palestinian couples facing an uncertain future as a result of Israel's strict limitations on granting citizenship or permanent residency to Palestinians from the West Bank and Gaza Strip who are married to Israelis.
http://www.thenational.ae/article/20080703/FOREIGN/564898162/1002/NEWS
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