Arab-Israeli pilgrims use temporary Jordan passports

The Jordanian government has confirmed that it issues temporary passports for Arab-Israeli passport holders so that they can enter the Kingdom to perform the Haj.
This follows the Saudi government this week rejecting reports that it would endorse Haj visas on Israeli passports if they were issued by its consulates abroad.
Every year, nearly 5,000 Arab citizens of Israel, arrive in the Kingdom to perform the pilgrimage. These citizens are holders of Israeli passports, which are not recognized by Saudi Arabia or the majority of Arab states, except for Jordan and Egypt that signed peace treaties with Israel in 1979 and 1994 respectively.
“We understand the problems Arab-Israelis are going through, therefore we try to facilitate their travel to the Kingdom as much as we can. We issue them a one-month passport upon their arrival in the Kingdom, which they use when applying for a visa at the Saudi embassy for the Haj,” Director General of the Jordanian Passport and Civil Status Department Marqan Qutaishat told Arab News on Friday.
Qutaishat said these pilgrims would then have to hand in these temporary passports to the Jordanian government after completing the Haj.

In a statement to the media this week, Saudi Ambassador to Amman Sami Al-Saleh stressed that the embassy does not accept Israeli passports. He reiterated that Arab-Israelis traveling from the occupied lands in Palestine are issued Haj visas in temporary passports issued by the Jordanian government.

 

 

This statement follows reports earlier this week that the Saudi Passport Department would allow Arabs holding Israeli passports to enter the Kingdom provided their visas were issued by a consulate abroad and approved by the Haj Ministry.
Ahmed Luhaidan, spokesman for the passports department, told Arab News on the phone that the department does not issue visas. The Saudi Foreign Ministry is mandated to do this, he said.
Earlier, the General Authority of Civil Aviation (GACA) confirmed there are no direct flights between the airports of the Kingdom and that of Occupied Palestine for the Haj season.
Khaled Al-Khaibari, spokesman for GACA, denied reports in Israeli media saying that Saudi Arabia would allow entry to pilgrims traveling to King Abdulaziz International Airport in Jeddah from Ben-Gurion Airport in Tel Aviv.
He said Gaza pilgrims travel to Saudi Arabia for pilgrimage via Egyptian airports, while pilgrims of the West Bank do so by air or road through Jordan.

3 Israeli soldiers protest ‘abuses’ against Palestinians

JERUSALEM: Forty-three reservists and former members of an elite Israeli army intelligence unit condemned alleged “abuses” against Palestinians in the occupied territories, in an open letter published on Friday.
The letter, addressed to Israel’s prime minister, armed forces chief and head of military intelligence and distributed to media, said information gathered by Unit 8200 was used by civilian intelligence agencies to coerce Palestinians uninvolved in militant activity.
The signatories of the letter said they would refuse to be party to such acts in future.
“There’s no distinction between Palestinians who are, and are not, involved in violence,” an English language copy of the letter says.
“Information that is collected and stored harms innocent people. It is used for political persecution and to create divisions within Palestinian society by recruiting collaborators and driving parts of Palestinian society against itself.”
“We cannot continue to serve this system in good conscience, denying the rights of millions of people,” the 43 soldiers and officers wrote.
The signatories gave just their ranks and first names or first initials.
“Those among us who are reservists, refuse to take part in the state’s actions against Palestinians,” the letter, seen by AFP said.

 

 

“We call for all soldiers serving in the Intelligence Corps, present and future, along with all the citizens of Israel, to speak out against these injustices and to take action to bring them to an end.”
The letter, published less than three weeks after the Israeli military’s fierce military offensive against Palestinian militants in the Gaza Strip, slammed the “collective punishment of inhabitants” of the coastal territory.

2,100 killed
It did not specifically mention the July-August war which took the lives of more than 2,100 Palestinians, most of them civilians, and 73 people on the Israeli side, 67 of them soldiers.
The army on Friday questioned the accuracy and motivation of the protesters’ accusations.
“The Intelligence Corps has no record that the... violations in the letter ever took place,” it said in a statement.
“Immediately turning to the press instead of their officers or relevant authorities is suspicious and raises doubts as to the seriousness of their claim.”
Members of Unit 8200, considered among Israel’s best and brightest, carry out electronic communications monitoring and surveillance, similar to work performed by the US National Security Agency and Britain’s GCHQ.
The unit is one component of the broader military intelligence corps and shares information with Israel’s civilian intelligence agencies.
A former commander of the unit, reserve Brig. Gen. Hanan Gefen, accused the letter’s authors of a grave breach of trust.
“If this is true and if I were the current unit commander, I would put them all on trial and would demand prison sentences for them, and I would remove them from the unit,” he was quoted as saying by Maariv newspaper on Friday.
“They are using information that reached them in the course of their duties to promote their political position.”
One of the signatories, speaking on condition of anonymity, told top-selling Yediot Aharonot newspaper: “I think that all of us who signed the letter did so because we understood that we are unable to sleep well at night.”
Most Israeli men perform three years of compulsory military service after school, and women two years, followed by regular spells of reserve duty for years afterwards.