Jerusalem, January 22: Israel is waging its newest war on foreign aid workers in the Palestinian territories, depriving them from work permits legalizing their stay, amid warning that Israel is particularly targeting those in Al-Quds (occupied East Jerusalem) as part of its plot to Judaize the holy city.
“We are now in a very precarious legal position,” Jean-Luc Lambert, head of the Médecins sans Frontières aid group in Al-Quds, told.
Israel’s Interior Ministry has stopped granting work permits to foreign nationals working in most international aid organizations operating in the occupied territories, including Al-Quds.
The ministry is now granting them tourist visas only, which bars them from working.
Those working for prominent aid groups such as Oxfam, Médecins sans Frontières and Save the Children have only been given tourist visas since December.
“We can’t get B1 [working] visas, only [tourist] visas, and with this it is not permitted for us to work,” explained Lambert.
Some have already been denied entry to the West Bank by Israeli border officials who control all entry to the occupied Palestinian territory.
Aid groups are now worried that pushing them out of the occupied lands would jeopardize medical support and basic supplies to hundreds of thousands of Palestinian civilians.
Some Israeli groups have accused their government of “declaring war” on foreign groups, especially those critical of its long-running blockade on the Gaza Strip.
Israel has clamped a siege on the Gaza Strip since Hamas was voted to power in the 2006 legislative elections.
It further tightened the blockade after Hamas assumed control in 2007 blocking basic humanitarian aid.
Many fear the move specifically targets foreign aid workers in Al-Quds, which faces an unrelenting Israeli Judaization scheme.
Targeted Al-Quds
The aid community fears that the visa restrictions specifically targets foreign aid workers in Al-Quds, which faces an unrelenting Israeli Judaization scheme.
“There’s a feeling that we are going to be pushed out of East Jerusalem,” a Western aid worker told.
Lambert, the Médecins sans Frontières official, said that under the new rules he could not work in his Al-Quds headquarters, nor hold a meeting in the predominantly Arab half of the city that Israel captured in the 1967 war.
Palestinian aid workers who coordinate with international aid groups have the same concern.
“The aim of preventing the international employees from working in Al-Quds is to continue the Israeli policy of Judaizing the eastern part of the holy city,” Sha’wan Jabarin, director of al-Haq rights group, told the Voice of Palestine radio.
He said the aid workers’ presence in Al-Quds, considered by international law to be an occupied territory, was always worrying to Israel.
Israel captured and occupied Al-Quds in 1967, then annexed it in a move not recognized by the world community or UN resolutions.
Al-Quds is home to Al-Haram Al-Sharif, which includes Islam’s third holiest shrine AlAqsa Mosque, and represents the heart of the Arab-Israeli conflict.
Palestinians insist the city will be the capital of their future independent state.
Turning a deaf ear to international outcries, Israel refuses to halt settlement building in the holy city and describes it as its capital.
Jabarin fears that the next step for Israel is going to be far more troubling.
“[It] will be ousting them from Al-Quds and consider all Jerusalem with its eastern and western parts as the eternal capital of Israel.”
-Agencies