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A Gaza man who was granted entry into Israel to take his young daughter to treatment at a Jerusalem hospital abandoned her during their stay and attempted to remain in Israel illegally.

Israel regularly issues entry permits to Arab residents of the Hamas-ruled Gaza Strip for “humanitarian reasons” – a blanket term which covers, among other things, a wide range of medical treatment.

While Israel recently announced that it would no longer permit known Hamas members and their immediate family members to enter the country on humanitarian grounds, Gazans with no known ties to the terror group remain eligible for entry permits.

Earlier this week, one man took advantage of an entry permit he received and attempted to avoid returning to Gaza, in a bid to remain in the country illegally. In the process, he abandoned his seven-year-old daughter, whose need for medical treatment had necessitated the trip into Israel from Gaza.

According to Israeli police, the Gaza man and his daughter were allowed into Israel recently, after the girl was authorized to receive treatment at a Jerusalem hospital.

On Sunday, after the treatment had been completed and the two Gaza residents were en route to the Erez Crossing on the Israel-Gaza frontier, the father asked that the driver of the minibus the two were travelling in stop for a moment so that his daughter could go to the bathroom.

After the two stepped out of the vehicle, the father immediately fled the scene, leaving his seven-year-old daughter crying by herself.

Local police were called to take the child into custody after the driver was unable to locate the father.

Police transferred the girl to the Lev Habira police station in Jerusalem, where officers attempted to calm her down and reassure her that her father would be located.

After more than three hours in the Lev Habira station, the girl was sent to the Erez Crossing on the Israel-Gaza border to be reunited with her mother, whom officers had managed to contact.

Later on Sunday, authorities located and arrested the girl’s father, who had managed to make his way from the capital to central Israel.