Palestinians spend Eid in occupied cities

Israel allowed “more than a million” Palestinians through its roadblocks to pray at the mosques of Jerusalem and paddle in the Mediterranean over Ramadan, in what an Israeli official said was part of several measures aimed at rebuilding confidence between the sides. The new attempt to warm the atmosphere contrasts with the freeze in peace efforts since direct peace talks between Israel and the Palestinians stalled in September 2010 over an intractable dispute concerning settlements. Palestinians from the West Bank also shopped in Israeli markets, especially on Fridays of Ramadan as more than half a million Palestinians visited Jerusalem and Israel on a daily basis. Guy Inbar, spokesman for the defence ministry department that deals with Palestinian civilian affairs in the West Bank said there had been an unprecedented easing of entry restrictions over the Muslim fasting month of Ramadan and the Eid al-Fitrholiday at its end. “More than a million Palestinians entered Israel over Ramadan and Eid al-Fitr for prayers, family visits and trips around Israel,” he said. He could not say how many of those limited their visit to Israeli-annexed east Jerusalem which the Jewish state considers to be part of its capital while the Palestinians, who make up most of its population, claim it as the capital of a future Palestinian state. The city is home to the Al-Aqsa mosque compound, and the relaxed restrictions gave tens of thousands a rare opportunity to visit the Muslim holy site, the third-holiest in Islam.   News agencies, eye witnesses and Al-Aqsa observers said that the number of people praying at Al-Aqsa reached half a million on the last Friday of Ramadan, hundreds of thousands in the first, second, third and fourth Fridays. West Bankers are usually only allowed into the city or inside Israel with special permits. Palestinians also flocked to the sandy beaches of the Mediterranean which many inhabitants of the landlocked West Bank have never seen. “I am so happy that my grandchildren were able to see the sea and now can understand how beautiful our country is,” Fawzya Fararjeh, 55,” told an AFP correspondent while walking along a Tel Aviv beach. “We live in Beit Sahur east of Bethlehem, “ she added. “If it was up to us we would be here every day but Israel never gave us permits.” “I was 10 years old when I saw the sea for the last time,” said Jihan Zaid, now 22, from Deir Ammar village near Ramallah. Israeli travel restrictions on Palestinians were intensified after the 2000 outbreak of the second Palestinian uprising. Israeli officials said that the new relaxation -- which ends on Thursday -- is part of a policy aimed at thawing the chilly relations between Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Palestinian president Mahmud Abbas. In some cases, Israeli authorities also opened the roadblocks for men and women of different ages without the regular search. Security coordination offices between the Palestinians and Israelis witnessed an influx of thousands of citizens, some among them previously banned for security reasons from entering Jerusalem and crossing the Green Line. Youths between the ages of 20 and 40 who were not included in the Israeli relaxation process. Israel had decided to give permits to Palestinian men between the ages 18-40 and allowed women to enter without conditions or permits in addition to letting children under 12 enter without restriction. One official cited a series of measures, among them an agreement last month on bilateral tax and trade arrangements, an attempt to broker an IMF loan for Abbas’s cash-strapped administration and the repatriation in May of the remains of 91 Palestinians killed during anti-Israeli attacks over four decades. “Over the past few weeks we have adopted a whole series of confidence-building measures,” he said on condition of anonymity. “We’ve done all those things and we’re willing to do more, to try to create a better atmosphere.” Israeli Army Radio said that the mini cabinet decided to grant 11,000 work permits in two installments to increase the number of Palestinians working in Israel to 30,000. According to the radio broadcast, the decision came to boost building and resolve a housing shortage, to do without African and European labour, to support the economy under the Palestinian Authority whose economy suffers a real crisis, which would reflect positively on the security stability in the country. The latest measures, which Israel called as "relaxation" has however led citizens to doubt the real intentions behind them. “Since when does Israel become so kind-hearted in exchange for nothing?” seems to be a popular sentiment, and others said that it was "unfamiliar that Israel eases restrictions on Palestinians unless they want something from it, and this is undoubtedly certain”. The youth, however, spontaneously described West Jerusalem and coasalt cities as “heaven” and said that they would visit again where there is psychological comfort. Some also suspect that the move was part of a grander plan to dissolve the PA. The proposition would oblige Israel to shoulder the burden of the people they will occupy anew and force them to open closed crossings for Palestinians which requires testing systems and monitoring the performance of concerned bodies. It might also be purely a security need through which Israel could allegedly aim at conducting studies on those interested in obtaining permits to visit Israel and categorise them into groups to enhance the possibilities of economic peace, normalisation, brainwashing and eventual recruitment. Palestinian political and security sources said that “although it welcomes the idea of allowing hundreds of thousand of Palestinians into Jerusalem and Al-Aqsa, which would enhance the Palestinian presence there, the PA believes that some intention lies underneath without excluding the possibility that Israeli government has a political scheme to change the de facto situation since the current right-wing government has adopted an erroneous method to undermine the PA since the first day of its term in Israel. Their declaration of the move as a 'relaxation' comes within Netanyahu’s 'view of economic peace'.” The official Palestinian sources clarified that they do not rule out the possibility that these "relaxations" may be a step to study the Palestinian citizen’s behaviour and acceptance of returning under the control of the occupation and showing that Israel can provide them with better chances on the economic level at a time when the PA is unable to provide a solution. A member of the PA’s central committee, Mohammad Eshtayyeh, said to the press that “Israel is aware of the congestion in the West Bank, the blocked political horizon and the collapsing economic situation.” He thought it likely that the move to ease the restrictions is a very temporary security outlet to ease congestion but denied it was linked to boosting purchases in Israeli markets as some believed. He clarified that although most people who obtained the permits were poor, in reality they were granted to all cities of the West Bank and all ages of men and women, traders and citizens. Despite the differing opinions around true Israeli intentions behind the latest permits, the unwavering perception remains that entering Jerusalem is a fixed Palestinian right and that Palestinian people will not fall into Israeli "schemes" due to mutual mistrust. Of the hundreds of thousands of Palestinians applying for permits to enter Israel, almost 180,000, mostly men, got the permits as women are usually allowed into Israel in Ramadan without permits. This is the first time that Israel has done this in 12 years. Arabstoday met a number of Palestinians to get an idea of public opinion. Media professional Montasser Hamdan said: “Our traders paid a high price for this Israeli policy which aimed at adversely affecting local markets and increasing their stagnation in favour of attracting Palestinian money into Israeli markets. Supposing that Israel gave 70,000 permits and each citizen paid 1000 shekels (250$) for Israeli products, this would make an overall profit of 70 million shekels ($2 million) taken from our national economy and our traders. This is an Israeli policy of twofold goals.” Journalist Mostafa Besharat told Arabstoday that in addition to the economic side, the political side also matters. When he saw the images on Facebook of West Bank residents' visit to Al-Aqsa, he commented that “Al-Aqsa turned into some kind of folklore.” A young woman, Lina Al-Ghoul spoke to Arabstoday about a contradiction in the scene. She said that “the high prices in the Palestinian territories has disastrous effects as people resorted to Israeli markets where the prices are almost less by half, in addition to incredible discounts while Palestinian traders use the holy month and Eid occasion to double the prices.” Media professional Mohamed Nassar saw another discrepancy when comparing the scene to “our madness about normalisation, negotiations, and accusations of treason, and claims that arms are the solution, and pretending that they boycott Israeli products”. He said that “half of those rejecting Palestinian ties [with Israel] saying that it’s normalisation with the Israeli entity applied for permits into Israel, obtained them, spent their Eid in Israel and bought Israeli products.”