According to Le Figaro, the national court of asylum law (CNDA) granted for the first time the status of refugee to a national of Gaza and his minor son, marking a turning point in the French asylum policy. Seizure of the case of a mother who fled Gaza shortly after Hamas’ attacks on October 7, 2023, the CNDA qualified the Israeli “war methods” as “persecution”, within the meaning of the 1951 Geneva Convention.
The French daily reports that the Court reversed the decision of the French Office for the Protection of Refugees and Stateless Effrusion (OFPRA), which had granted a simple “subsidiary protection” last November, recognizing an “intense conflict but without personal persecution”. The CNDA evokes Israeli control over Gaza, the high number of civilian victims, destruction of essential infrastructure (water, electricity, hospitals, schools), forced trips and humanitarian aid blockages, creating generalized food insecurity.
The judges retained “persecution due to nationality”, although the Palestinian state does not formally exist. They consider the stateless Gazaouis as a group united by a cultural, ethnic and geographic identity. So far, only the Palestinians registered at UNRWA (post-conflict of 1948) could claim refugee status in Europe, justifying an “imperious” departure from UN protection. The others only received subsidiary protection, created in 2003 for the presentations to blind violence without fulfilling the refugee criteria. This decision could open the way to other Gazaouis requests, in a context of a humanitarian crisis.