Yasmine was born in July 2014 at Jerusalem’s Hadassah Medical Center. Six months later, she has yet to get a birth certificate from the Israeli authorities. While her mother Tamara was born and has lived all her life in East Jerusalem, young Yasmine’s sin is that her father hails from the nearby West Bank city of Beit Jala.

Shortly after Yasmine's birth, Tamara took her daughter and all the necessary documents — the rental agreement for her Jerusalem home, utility bills and her blue ID card proving that Jerusalem is her place of residence — to the small office of the Israeli Ministry of Interior in East Jerusalem’s Wadi al-Joz neighborhood and waited in a long line.

After reviewing her papers, the Israeli clerk asked for yet another document, an affidavit signed in the presence of a lawyer vouching that Tamara actually lives in the home for which she provided a valid rental agreement. Months earlier, Israeli social security officials had visited her at the very same home to see she lived at that address before approving what every Israeli citizen and resident is entitled to: free medical care including hospital coverage for delivering a baby.

Tamara was given an appointment date for mid-February 2015, because the small office dealing with all East Jerusalemites had more cases than it could handle. On Feb. 16, Tamara arrived at the Ministry of Interior, armed with the required affidavit, only to find the office closed. The ministry's staff had decided to go on strike indefinitely, causing major havoc and disruptions to the lives of the more than 300,000 Palestinians living in East Jerusalem.