Israel to ease limits on Palestinian travel for holiday
Army to grant 100,000 permits for West Bank families to visit Israel during Eid al-Adha, expand border hours for those leaving country
Israel will ease some restrictions on movement for Palestinians to mark the upcoming Muslim holiday of Eid al-Adha, the Defense Ministry said Monday.
The ministry will permit 100,000 West Bank Arabs to visit family in Israel, the Coordinator of Government Activities in the Territories, Major General Yoav (Poly) Mordechai, announced on Facebook.
In addition, border posts will operate for longer than usual to enable Palestinians, including Gazans, to travel abroad via Ben Gurion International Airport or Amman.
Eid al-Adha, which is marked by some Muslims with the hajj pilgrimage to Mecca is slated to begin on or about September 12.
As in past years, married men aged 45 and above and women over 30 will be permitted to pray at the al-Aqsa Mosque on the Temple Mount, the third holiest site in Islam.
For Gazans, permits to visit the Jerusalem holy site will only be provided for those 60-years-old and more.
Last year’s Eid al-Adha celebrations took place against the background of mounting clashes between Palestinian rioters and police forces — the precursor to the wave of so-called ‘lone wolf’ Palestinian terror attacks that has swept Israel over the past year.
The attacks have claimed the lives of 35 Israelis and four foreign nationals since October in a spate of car-ramming, stabbing, shooting, and bombing attacks.
Some 215 Palestinians have also been killed, most of them while attempting attacks, according to Israel. Others were killed in clashes with security forces.
Last year’s Temple Mount riots were kindled by Muslim fury over visits by Jews to the Temple Mount amid fears that the five-decade-long rules governing the compound would be changed. Israel has denied any plans for such changes.
The so-called status quo — established by Israel after it conquered the site in the 1967 Six Day War — allows Jews to visit the Temple Mount, but not to pray there.
Eid al-Adha, or Festival of the Sacrifice, commemorates the willingness of the patriarch Abraham, or Ibrahim in the Muslim tradition, to sacrifice his son and God’s intervention that stopped the slaughter.