This weekend Israel has initiated a massive campaign to rid itself of any international presence in the Westbank and Gaza. The first suicide attack in Israel executed by foreigners (two British men) last week provided the Israeli government and the Israeli “Defence” Forces (IDF) wit the excuse to not only expel activists from Israel, but also refuse entry to basically everybody else.

entry denied

Since last week, dozens of people of international and Palestinian organizations (including Amnesty International and), community volunteers working with Palestinians in Israel and Palestine and tourists are systematically returned back to the Jordan border daily. Here in Amman, we are becoming an interesting community of ‘exiles from Israel’. What is happening at Ben Gurion airport I don’t know, but I cannot imagine it is much better.

The funniest visa we saw issued was to two Spanish tourists who, after first blatantly being refused entry to Israel at the Aqaba/Eilat border, were given a visa for HALF an hour to catch their bus to Egypt. If they did not call at the Egyptian border by that time, the Israeli police would come after them. Tourists who wanted to stay longer were not let in.

More seriously, volunteers and employees who have worked in Palestine or Israel for months and sometimes years are given an ‘entry denied’ stamp in their passport on the orders of the Ministry of Interior, as border guards told us. Their passports are appently put on a ‘black list’, which will prevent them from entering at other border crossings. The Israeli embassy in Amman refuses to provide any help to those who are even ‘legal’ to enter according to Israeli law.

Really, this happens to EVERYBODY at the moment.

Gaza closed

In Gaza, all internationals wanting to enter are required to fill in a form that exempts the IDF of all responsibility to anything that might happen to them while they are there. Amnesty International delegates who refused to sign the document were barred from entering on Friday.

At the moment the form is useless anyway, because Gaza has indefinetly been closed off to all internationals (and Palestinians, of course…) except diplomats. Same goes for Kalandia checkpoint, the main entry point to Jerusalam from Ramallah.