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The parents married in Israel in 2015 and had two daughters, age 9 and 10 at the time of the hearing. The whole family were Israeli citizens, the mother held dual Israeli-US citizenship.

The family lived together in Israel until the parents divorced in 2019. An Israeli family court granted the father visitation rights and ordered him to pay the mother child support. In addition, an Israeli family court entered a protective order against the father and his new wife after finding a reasonable basis to assume that their behaviour put the mother in real physical danger.

In November 2023 the mother took the children to the US with the father’s consent but the father argued that she wrongly retained them there after the agreed 60-days. 

The father made an application under the 1980 Hague Convention for the return of the children to Israel. 

At first instance the Judge ordered the children be returned to Israel. The mother appealed this decision arguing that the Article 13(1)(b) exception applied and that the children objected to returning and were mature enough for their views to be taken into account. 

Appeal allowed, return refused. The District Court had erred in finding that Article 13(1)(b) did not apply. 

Grave Risk - Art. 13(1)(b)

The Court concluded that the district court erred in finding that Article 13(1)(b) did not apply. 

The mother and one of the children both testified that the father had been physically violent and there were many other testimonies that described the father as engaging in other harmful actions that endangered the children’s lives. Testimony also showed violence and threats to members of the children’s support system in Israel, including family, friends and neighbors. 

These were serious allegations. Without finding these allegations to lack credibility, the district court’s conclusion that this is not a case with “sufficiently serious threats to a parent [that] can pose a grave risk of harm to a child” was wrong as a matter of law.

Objections of the Child to a Return - Art. 13(2)

Both children testified about their wish to remain in the United States and violence on the part of their father and his wife. 

As the Court found that Article 13(1)(b) applied in this case they did not consider further child’s objections exception.