Newsletter
Newsletter Support JNS

IDF bars Palestinian laborers’ entry into Israeli communities amid security tensions

Flag in Ma'ale Efraim
An Israeli flag in the Jordan Valley, near the community of Ma’ale Efraim, Jan. 2, 2014. Photo by Uri Lenz/Flash90.

The Israel Defense Forces decided to implement a two-day entry ban on Palestinian workers into Israeli communities in Judea and Samaria and the Jordan Valley that will start on Sunday, the military said.

Industrial zones and a limited number of other approved areas are excluded from the ban, the IDF added. In addition, a ban was approved by the political leadership on the entry and exit of Palestinian workers throughout Judea and Samaria and the Jordan Valley, including industrial zones, as well as the closure of all land crossings between Judea and Samaria, and Green Line Israel, throughout Election Day on Oct. 27, the military said.

The bans come in the wake of a situational assessment held by the defense establishment after two IDF soldiers were killed in a terrorist attack on Friday in the Hebron area in Judea.

See more from JNS Staff
“I’m scared of what’s going to happen now,” Miri Bar-Halpern, a Jewish psychology lecturer at Harvard Medical School, told JNS. “I can already predict the backlash.”
The country’s next government will depend on whether its political leaders can reconcile their competing commitments, or whether voters will again be asked to resolve a deadlock that negotiations could not.
“They will push legislation very hard to end the Iran war, and it’s not inconceivable that they could get a fair amount of Republican support for that,” William Galston of Brookings told JNS.
Belgrade police killed the minor, who was armed with two knives and was tied to the Islamic State, the Serbian Interior Ministry said.