Бывший сотрудник швейцарского МИДа отвергнут в гуманитарной визе после гибели семьи в Газе

A Palestinian former employee of the Swiss foreign ministry makes allegations Jaser Abu Mousa was no minor figure at the office of the Swiss Agency for Development and Cooperation (SDC) in Gaza. He was the mission’s most senior local staff member. He managed Switzerland’s programmes in the enclave, provided political analysis and was responsible for the security of the office and Swiss diplomats visiting Gaza. Swiss public broadcaster RTS has seen correspondence showing just how much he was respected and taken seriously by the SDC office in Ramallah in the West Bank, to which he reported. But Jaser Abu Mousa’s life was turned upside down following the Hamas attack on October 7, 2023. His wife and two of his children were killed in an Israeli air strike. Evacuated to the United Arab Emirates In December 2023, Jaser Abu Mousa and his two remaining children were evacuated to the United Arab Emirates with Switzerland’s help. In Abu Dhabi, his son Abdullah underwent several operations, while his daughter Sham was treated for burns. The family was housed in a refugee camp. For months, Jaser Abu Mousa appealed to Switzerland via the SDC for help while waiting for a humanitarian visa. “Every time I spoke to my office in Ramallah, I asked for a visa for Switzerland. We were living in a camp, but it was a kind of captivity. That was no life at all,” says Jaser Abu Mousa in the RTS programme Tout un monde. “I applied for several jobs in the United Arab Emirates, but as soon as they found out I didn’t have a residence permit, I was turned down,” he continues. “I really did exhaust every possible option to get out of there, but Switzerland prevented me from doing so. I received a brutal message from the head of personnel at the SDC in Ramallah, which said: ‘There is no visa for you’,” he says. In some messages, Jaser Abu Mousa’s superiors advised him to apply for a visa in Germany, where his sister lives. Jaser Abu Mousa later submitted a second application for a humanitarian visa from the US, where he was able to travel temporarily thanks to a scholarship. More The Board of Peace must address the basic needs of the Palestinian population ‘Very clear’ criteria The Swiss foreign ministry, to which the SDC reports, believes it has fulfilled its obligations. “This situation is tragic, and the Swiss foreign ministry bears responsibility as an employer. It must protect its staff, which is what we have done,” emphasises Swiss foreign ministry spokesperson Nicolas Bideau, while acknowledging “that we take a restrictive approach when admitting people to Switzerland”. “We brought him out of the Gaza Strip on December 7, 2023. We then took him to Abu Dhabi. And there we provided him with an annual salary. We have fulfilled our responsibilities,” he continues. “The question of whether or not he will be granted a humanitarian visa falls within the remit of the State Secretariat for Migration (SEM), which has decided not to grant him a humanitarian visa,” Bideau says, adding: “A humanitarian visa is granted when a person’s physical integrity or life is under a concrete threat.” “The SEM makes decisions and asks us questions: Is your former employee’s physical integrity or life under threat today? No, he is not under threat, as we have just rescued him from a situation in which he was under threat. These criteria are therefore very clear. They cannot be circumvented by a political or other decision,” emphasises Bideau. The Swiss foreign ministry and the SEM pass the buck In response to an enquiry, the SEM confirms in writing “that a humanitarian visa is not usually granted if the person is already in a third country and is therefore no longer at risk”. According to SEM figures, Switzerland has issued 171 humanitarian visas to people of Palestinian origin since 2022. In the case of a former Swiss foreign ministry employee, however, the SEM says that it merely has an advisory role: “The decision on an application for a humanitarian visa lies within the remit of the Swiss foreign ministry’s Swiss representation abroad, after the SEM has been consulted.” According to several sources within the Swiss foreign ministry familiar with the matter, Ignazio Cassis’s department could have intervened on behalf of Jaser Abu Mousa. His case was reportedly dealt with at the highest levels of the department. Had the Swiss foreign ministry wished to grant a humanitarian visa, it could have done so and should have done so, according to the same sources. Bideau, for his part, emphasises that Cassis did not intervene in the matter. Unease within the Swiss foreign ministry The handling of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict is causing unease within the Swiss foreign ministry. Several internal letters and former ambassadors have accused Ignazio Cassis of not taking a firm enough stance against Israeli crimes in Gaza. According to one of RTS’s sources, the handling of Jaser Abu Mousa’s case stems from this perspective on the conflict. “For Ignazio Cassis, there is no Palestinian civil society in Gaza, so every Palestinian from Gaza is close to Hamas,” the source claims. “That is wrong,” counters Bideau. “The proof of this is the tens of millions of francs we are spending on humanitarian aid for the victims of the conflict.” Another source speaks of a “zero-risk policy” in handling the case, “even though he was not on any official blacklist”. More Why Switzerland doesn’t recognise Palestine as a state A sense of injustice This is the source of Jaser Abu Mousa’s sense of injustice and anger: “I have been let down and betrayed by the Swiss government. For nine years, it taught me not to harm anyone, yet it has itself done me harm. It taught me about international humanitarian law and how to adopt a human rights-based approach. I do not know what approach Switzerland took when handling my case. But I ask for just one thing: if it regards me as a terrorist, I want to know why. And I need evidence.” Today, Jaser Abu Mousa lives in fear and uncertainty. As he no longer has a visa, he has applied for asylum in the US, but fears arrest or deportation to a third country. A second application rejected Following Switzerland’s initial rejection, Jaser Abu Mousa was awarded a research fellowship at Yale University in the US from Abu Dhabi in 2024 and, in the final days of Joe Biden’s term in office, narrowly managed to secure a six-month visa for himself and his two children. With Donald Trump’s return, everything has changed: Palestinians are being denied entry visas to the US and their asylum applications have been put on hold. When his US visa expires in the summer of 2025, Jaser Abu Mousa submits a new application for a humanitarian visa in Switzerland: “I submitted this application on the basis of my connections to Switzerland and my long-standing cooperation with the FDFA. Unfortunately, it didn’t work out. On July 24, I was summoned to the Swiss Consulate in New York. The day before, I had received devastating news from Gaza. My mother, my sister and her children had been killed. This rejection left me completely devastated. My children were also naive; they had even started learning German on Duolingo.” The document handed to Jaser Abu Mousa is signed by the Swiss Consulate in New York. It can be summarised in a few words: there is no obvious danger that would justify the granting of an entry visa. More Our newsletter on geopolitics Translated from German, sub-edited by Alexandra MV Andrist In compliance with the JTI standards More: SWI swissinfo.ch certified by the Journalism Trust Initiative