Visiting hours said extended for Israelis at flashpoint Joseph’s Tomb in Nablus

Jewish visitors to Joseph’s Tomb, a shrine located in the heart of the northern West Bank city of Nablus, will soon be able to extend overnight visits to daylight hours, allowing them to hold morning prayers at the site, according to Hebrew media reports on Monday.

The tomb, said to be the resting place of the biblical patriarch Joseph, is located in Area A of the West Bank, which is under full Palestinian Authority control. The site has repeatedly been a flashpoint of Israeli-Palestinian violence, including clashes at the onset of the Second Intifada in October 2000 that killed a Border Police officer.

Israelis are prohibited from entering Area A, and at present, groups of Israelis are allowed to access the tomb only via prearranged visits under military guard.

Those visits, coordinated by the Samaria Regional Council, generally take place late at night, with the groups mandated to leave at 4 a.m.

A group of Israelis who visited earlier this year without prior coordination reportedly clashed with local Palestinians, and some of them sustained minor injuries.

Beginning in the coming weeks, the approved visits will be extended by four hours to 8 a.m., reports said.

That will allow the groups, generally composed of religious Jews, to hold organized morning prayers, which must begin after dawn breaks. The hours may be extended further in the future.

The change was agreed upon by Defense Minister Israel Katz, MK Zvi Sukkot of the far-right Religious Zionism party and Yishai Merling, who heads the World Zionist Organization’s Settlement Division, in coordination with the IDF. The change will reportedly not require more troops to monitor the site, and visitors will also be allowed to arrive at 6 a.m. and stay for two hours.

“Moving forward,” read a post on X celebrating the decision and shared by Sukkot on Monday. Using the Hebrew name for Nablus, he added, “Shechem will be a totally Jewish city, God willing.”

The change is being made following a string of incidents in which Israelis were extracted by security forces from Area A, including one reported kidnapping attempt in Jericho in which a woman was rescued by PA security forces. This week, troops reportedly extracted an Israeli man who had gone to pray at Joseph’s Tomb.

Overall, according to Channel 12, this year has seen a spike in illegal Jewish Israeli entries to Area A, with more than 160 instances recorded, compared to just 60 in 2024. The network reported that security officials attribute the spike to the end of the war in Gaza, which has made Israelis feel safer.

While some Israelis who venture into Area A seek low-cost shopping or affordable auto repair, others enter specifically to visit Joseph’s Tomb.

The change is also the latest government step to expand Israel’s presence in the West Bank. Last week, the government announced 11 new settlements and legalized eight additional outposts in the territory.