(Ramallah) In recent months in Ramallah, Palestinian lawyer Rassem Kamal has seen many foreigners pass through his office, very worried about new rules decreed by Israel, which are due to come into force on Monday, to restrict entry and stay. in the occupied West Bank.
Posted at 8:04 a.m.
Published in February, the new procedure for entering the West Bank – Palestinian territory occupied since 1967 by Israel – targets foreigners wishing to reside, work, volunteer or study there. In particular, it could affect many Erasmus+ students.
This procedure has already been postponed twice because it was challenged before the Israeli Supreme Court by 19 plaintiffs. Among them, the Israeli human rights organization Hamoked which considers it “extremely restrictive” and denounces “intrusive and superfluous criteria”.
A foreigner wishing to go to the West Bank will no longer be able to obtain a visa on arrival. He will have to request it 45 days before, specify if he has first-degree family in the West Bank and indicate if he owns land or if he should inherit it.
And barring exceptions, he will no longer be able to arrive via Tel Aviv airport but only take the crossing point between Jordan and the West Bank, controlled by Israel.
The new 97-page procedure requires in some cases to deposit a deposit of up to 70,000 shekels (27,000 Canadian dollars) and requires, between two visas, a break of several months outside the territory.
Foreigners doing business in the West Bank “rushed” to Rassem Kamal to make powers of attorney in favor of Palestinian relatives as soon as the procedure became known.
“They know that when the rules are going to be applied, their coming will be restricted,” he told AFP.
” More efficient ”
According to the new measures, “visa extensions are very restrictive. In most cases, a person has to leave and sometimes stay abroad for a year before they can apply for a new visa,” says Hamoked.
This will have a direct impact on the foreign spouses of Palestinians who will have to leave when their visas expire, depriving “thousands of Palestinian families of the right to live together without interruption and to live a normal family life”, denounces the association. Israel, noting that visa applications may be refused without justification.
“These draconian measures will also have a serious impact on humanitarian work,” says Canadian doctor Benjamin Thomson, director of the “Keys of health” project, who is one of the plaintiffs who have taken legal action.
“The new rules will prevent many health professionals from entering the West Bank,” he told AFP, denouncing the “uncertainty” about the granting and renewal of visas for his organization training Palestinian doctors. .
Asked by AFP, Cogat, the body of the Israeli Ministry of Defense supervising civilian activities in the Palestinian Territories, explained that its measures should make it possible to manage visa applications “in a more efficient way and more adapted to the changing conditions of the moment “.
He welcomed that entry rules for faculty, students and other residents were “for the first time” clearly spelled out and said the procedure was to be tested for two years.
Erasmus+ under threat
The new policy has been criticized as far away as Brussels, due to the quotas imposed on university professors (150 per year) and foreign students (100) going to Palestinian universities. In 2020, 366 European students and professors attended these establishments.
EU Education Commissioner Mariya Gabriel said in July that the restrictions were contrary to the aims of the Erasmus+ exchange programme.
“While Israel greatly benefits from Erasmus, the Commission considers that it should facilitate and not hinder the access of students to Palestinian universities”, she also remarked, while 1,803 Israeli students and professors summer at European universities in 2020.
As the “occupying force” in the West Bank, Israel can act in the name of its security and “for the well-being of the local population”, according to international humanitarian law, recalls Jessica Montell, director of Hamoked.
“But this procedure has nothing to do with either,” she says, saying it aims to “restrict the growth of the Palestinian population through family reunification” and prevent ” the entrenchment” of foreigners in the territory of 2.9 million Palestinians and 475,000 Israeli settlers.