FROM GAZA TO NORWAY: EVACUATION, STATE RESPONSIBILITY, AND QUESTIONS OF NATIONAL SECURITY

Who Pays for the Return, Who Screens Those Returning, and Where Is the Boundary Between the Humanitarian Duty of the State and Its Responsibility to Its Own Citizens?

Analytical Political and Legal Commentary

Under the Scientific Editorship 

of Doctor of Philosophy Mayer Meir Kaltenbrunner

There are questions that cannot be reduced exclusively to emotional slogans — whether humanitarian or political. This is particularly true when human lives, armed conflict, the use of public funds, and national security are involved simultaneously.

The return from the Gaza Strip of persons who are Norwegian citizens or who have close ties to Norway is precisely such an issue.

As a matter of principle, I proceed from the position that a citizen of a state who finds himself or herself in a war zone and in immediate danger has the right to expect consular assistance from that state within the limits of what is possible under the law and international practice. The protection of human life should not depend on a person's ethnic origin, religion, or political views.

However, recognition of this humanitarian principle does not eliminate an entirely different set of questions.

Who was present in the conflict zone?

Under what circumstances did these people arrive there?

How long had they been there?

What legal status did they hold in Norway before travelling there?

When and by what means did they enter Gaza?

And, finally, what identification and security-screening procedures were applied before their return to Norway?

These questions cannot legitimately be dismissed as expressions of hostility towards Palestinians. They are ordinary questions of governmental responsibility.

I. THE EVACUATION IS NOT PAID FOR OUT OF THE PRIME MINISTER'S OWN POCKET

When the Government informs society that it has organised an evacuation, transportation, medical assistance, or other governmental measures, one obvious fact must be remembered: public expenditure is not financed from the personal funds of the Prime Minister, government ministers, or a political party.

These are public funds.

Consequently, the taxpayer has a legitimate right to ask how those funds are being spent, on the basis of which decisions, and in relation to which categories of persons.

Humanitarian policy should not be exempt from the principles of financial transparency merely because it is described as humanitarian.

If the state pays for transportation, the work of public officials, diplomatic assistance, medical treatment, accommodation, or subsequent social support, society is entitled to know the overall cost of such measures and their legal basis.

This does not mean demanding that a person be abandoned in a war zone.

It means demanding accountability.

There is a fundamental distinction between these two concepts.

II. HOW DID NORWEGIAN CITIZENS AND RESIDENTS COME TO BE IN GAZA?

For me, this question has a particularly personal significance.

For twenty-two years, I was unable to return to Turkmenistan.

During those years, many of my relatives, loved ones, and friends died. I was unable to attend their funerals, accompany them on their final journey, or be present at their burial rites.

The reason was not a lack of desire.

The reason was that returning to a state governed by a harsh authoritarian system represented a serious risk to me.

It is precisely for this reason that I find it particularly difficult to accept without question a situation in which a person receives protection, citizenship, or a secure right of residence in a European state and subsequently voluntarily finds himself or herself in a territory whose security situation has been extremely unstable for many years.

Of course, the circumstances of every individual are different.

Someone may have travelled to visit a seriously ill parent.

Someone may have travelled to attend a funeral.

Someone may have travelled to be with a spouse or children.

Someone may have been there long before the present war began.

This is precisely why collective accusations are unacceptable.

But an absence of questions is equally unacceptable.

If some of those evacuated were persons who had previously received international protection in Norway, it is necessary to establish whether their voluntary return to the relevant region had any significance for the grounds upon which that protection had originally been granted.

If, on the other hand, the persons concerned were Norwegian citizens of Palestinian origin, the legal situation is different. Citizenship creates an entirely different set of rights and obligations.

The state should therefore not conflate these categories but should explain their differences to the public.

III. HUMANITARIAN ASSISTANCE DOES NOT ELIMINATE THE NEED FOR SECURITY SCREENING

The most sensitive part of this discussion concerns security.

Here, it is particularly important to reject two extremes.

The first extreme is to assume that every person arriving from Gaza is a potential terrorist.

Such an approach is unacceptable.

The second extreme is to regard the very question of security screening as morally unacceptable.

That is equally mistaken.

For many years, Gaza has existed under conditions of armed conflict and the activities of Hamas and other armed groups. Individual verification of identity, documents, and possible connections with extremist organisations is therefore not an expression of prejudice but a normal function of the state.

The question should not be formulated as follows:

“Are there terrorists among Palestinians?”

Such a question turns an entire people into suspects.

The correct question is entirely different:

What individual screening procedures did the Norwegian state apply to persons returning from a zone of armed conflict, and were those procedures sufficient to identify potential threats to national security?

No state can give society an absolute guarantee that an individual will never commit a crime in the future or become radicalised.

One hundred per cent security does not exist.

But the state is obliged to demonstrate that it has taken reasonable, lawful, and professional measures to minimise the risk.

IV. A QUESTION THAT SHOULD BE ADDRESSED TO PST AND THE GOVERNMENT

Norway has professional security institutions.

The discussion should therefore concern not the nationality of those returning, but the quality of the work performed by state institutions.

Were the identities of all adult evacuees reliably established?

Were their documents checked against available national and international databases?

Were the duration and circumstances of each person's stay in Gaza assessed?

Was there a procedure for exchanging information between the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, the police, the immigration authorities, and PST in cases where grounds for additional screening arose?

What procedures were applied to persons who were not Norwegian citizens?

What measures are provided for if false information concerning a person's identity or background is discovered?

And how was the balance maintained between national security and the fundamental principle that an individual cannot be regarded as guilty solely because of his or her origin?

These are questions worthy of parliamentary scrutiny.

V. STATISTICS MUST NOT BE REPLACED BY ASSUMPTIONS

Particular caution is necessary when dealing with crime statistics.

Public debate constantly produces striking figures concerning the number of offenders belonging to one nationality, religion, or background or another.

A serious study, however, cannot be built upon a figure merely because that figure creates a powerful impression.

If it is asserted, for example, that a certain number of prisoners in Norwegian prisons originate specifically from Gaza or the Palestinian territories, the public authorities should provide the statistical source, the methodology used for the calculation, and the definition of the category employed.

Until such confirmation is available, such a figure should not be presented as an established fact.

But the absence of a confirmed figure does not close the broader question.

On the contrary, it gives rise to another question:

Does Norway maintain sufficiently detailed and methodologically reliable statistics to enable the state to analyse problems of crime, integration, and radicalisation without political slogans or ethnic stereotypes?

Government policy must be based on data.

Not on fear.

Not on political correctness.

And not on propaganda.

VI. MY PERSONAL QUESTION REGARDING NORWEGIAN POLICY

I return to my own biography not in order to compare situations that are not directly comparable.

Turkmenistan and Gaza represent entirely different political, legal, and historical circumstances.

But the personal experience of being unable to return to my homeland for twenty-two years compels me to take the concepts of asylum, protection, and a safe state particularly seriously.

When a person genuinely cannot return to the place from which he or she fled, this is not an abstract legal formula.

It means missed funerals.

It means the graves of loved ones that one cannot visit.

It means years during which one understands that a single step across a state border may change the course of one's entire life.

For this reason, I consider it entirely legitimate to raise questions concerning cases in which persons benefiting from international protection voluntarily return to places whose danger formed part of the basis upon which that protection was granted.

Yet here too, every decision must be made individually.

A journey in itself does not prove fraud.

It is a circumstance that the state is entitled to examine in accordance with the law.

VII. THE RIGHT TO ASSISTANCE AND SOCIETY'S RIGHT TO AN ANSWER

Norway may make a political decision to assist its citizens.

It may participate in international humanitarian programmes.

It may evacuate injured children.

It may finance medical treatment.

All of this falls within the sphere of democratically determined public policy.

But democracy entails more than the government's right to make decisions.

It also entails society's right to ask:

How much does it cost?

Who receives assistance?

According to what criteria?

What screening procedures are conducted?

How is security ensured?

What consequences follow if false information has been provided to the state?

How does Parliament exercise oversight over these expenditures and procedures?

None of these questions constitutes an attack on the Palestinian people.

They are questions addressed to the Norwegian state.

It is the state that administers public funds.

It is the state that is responsible for border and immigration control.

It is the state that bears responsibility for the security of the population.

For this reason, the answer should not be demanded from a Palestinian sitting aboard an aircraft travelling from Cairo to Oslo.

The answer must be provided by the Government of Norway.

CONCLUSION

Humanity and security are not opposites.

A state governed by the rule of law must be capable of doing two things simultaneously: saving a person who genuinely faces danger and protecting the society that finances the activities of that state.

A child in need of urgent medical assistance should not become an object of political suspicion.

But a humanitarian operation should likewise not become an area exempt from oversight, screening, and public accountability.

The principal question, therefore, is not whether people from Gaza may be assisted.

They may be, and where lawful grounds exist, they should be.

The principal question is different:

Can a democratic state simultaneously demonstrate humanity, ensure national security, and provide taxpayers with a transparent account of how and on what legal grounds their money is being used?

There can be only one answer:

It can — and it must.

It is transparency that distinguishes humanitarian policy from political spectacle.

It is individual screening that distinguishes security from collective suspicion.

And it is accountability to society that distinguishes democratic governance from the arbitrary use of public resources.

© 2025 Mayer Meir Kaltenbrunner. All Rights Reserved.