Palestinians inspect the destruction in a makeshift displacement camp following an incursion by Israeli tanks in the Khan Younis area, in the southern Gaza Strip, on July 11, 2025. (Credit: AFP)
France has granted refugee status to a Palestinian woman and her son, considering that "they had a well-founded fear of personal persecution" if they returned to this territory, due to their "nationality," according to a decision issued Friday. This status was granted to them by the National Court of Asylum Law "in application of the 1951 Geneva Convention, due to the methods of warfare used by Israeli forces since the end, in March 2025, of the cease-fire."
"We can only welcome this decision, which recognizes that the exceptionally intense conflict ... endangers all Palestinians because they are Palestinians," said attorney Maya Lino, the applicant's lawyer, in a statement.
Until now, this Palestinian woman had received "subsidiary protection" after fleeing the Gaza Strip just days after the start of Israeli reprisals for the deadly Hamas attacks on Oct. 7, 2023. A year ago, she was denied, by the French Office for the Protection of Refugees and Stateless Persons (Ofpra), the more protective refugee status defined by the Geneva Convention.
Ofpra had recognized the situation of an "exceptionally intense conflict" in the Palestinian territory but considered that the applicant had not demonstrated a fear of persecution. The CNDA, responsible for examining appeals from migrants present on French territory whose asylum applications had been rejected by Ofpra, met in plenary session with nine judges — instead of the usual three — to rule.
With the decision issued Friday, the Court found that Palestinian nationals from the Palestinian territory not protected by the U.N. could benefit from refugee status. In another case, in September 2024, the court found that Palestinians protected by the U.N. — about 1.6 million Gazans out of 2.4 million — could already benefit from refugee status, given the current situation in Gaza.
The Hamas attack of Oct. 7, 2023, resulted in 1,219 deaths on the Israeli side, according to an AFP tally based on official data. The Israeli offensive carried out in retaliation has killed more than 57,000 in Gaza, according to Gaza's Health Ministry, whose figures are considered reliable by the U.N. At the U.N., the head of humanitarian operations, Tom Fletcher, urged, in mid-May 2025 in a dramatic speech, world leaders to "act to prevent a genocide" in Gaza.
