Israel: Foreigners visiting West Bank must tell if they fall in love with a Palestinian

Palestinians protest in Old City of Jerusalem, 2015. Photo / 123RF

Foreigners visiting the West Bank must tell Israel if they fall in love with a Palestinian, under new rules that will significantly increase Israel's control over those living under military occupation.

The rules, which come into effect on Monday and do not apply to Israeli settlements, will require foreigners to declare any romantic relationships with a Palestinian in the West Bank.

Foreigners who have married or are planning to marry a Palestinian – or simply have a relationship with them – must notify Cogat, the Israeli military body that administers the occupation of the West Bank. Israel captured the West Bank from Jordan in 1967 during the Six-Day War.

Failure to notify Israel within 90 days will result in the foreigner being forced to leave, according to the Times of Israel. The rules also state that if a foreigner marries a Palestinian, they will need to leave after 27 months for a cooling-off period of half a year in order to secure a new residency permit.

Israeli and Palestinian activists have criticised the rules, which they say are an attempt to "micromanage" the growth of Palestinian families and society.

Cogat officials maintain that the new rules are "more efficient and more suited to the dynamic conditions of the times." They also said the rules would be in place for a two-year trial period.

The new rules are listed in a 97-page order called "Procedure for entry and residence of foreigners in the Judea and Samaria area", using the Jewish biblical phrase for the West Bank. The rules were published in early 2022 but then delayed.

In addition to the relationship rules, the order sets quotas for academic exchange programmes which will allow only 100 foreign lecturers and 150 students to attend Palestinian universities per year. Around 300 students currently take part in the exchanges, and there are no such limits on Israeli universities.

'This is about control, rather than protecting Israel'

HaMoked, an Israeli human rights group that has led a Supreme Court appeal against the new rules, has said they will deprive "thousands of Palestinian families of the right to live together without interruption and to live a normal family life."

Right to Enter, another campaign group, described the rules as "an already entrenched system of discrimination against Palestinians in the West Bank". It also claimed that rules were really about imposing "control and isolation" rather than security measures to protect Israel from terrorism.

"The new restrictions — which also ask applicants to declare if they have land or are inheriting land in the West Bank — would not apply to the Jewish settlements in the West Bank. The territory's two-tiered legal structure treats Jewish Israelis as citizens living under civilian rule while Palestinians are treated as combatants under military rule," added a Right to Enter spokesman.

As the rules treat Palestinians and Israelis in the West Bank differently, Palestinian officials have compared the system to apartheid, a charge that Israel denies.

The European Commission, which runs the Erasmus Plus foreign exchange programme, has also rebuked Israel over the new rules on students and professors.

"The commission regards any action resulting in limiting the flow of international students and staff, including European ones, into Palestinian universities as detrimental to achieving the objective of Erasmus+ and overall negative for the internationalisation of Palestinian universities," said Mariya Gabriel, the EU's education commissioner.

She added that the EU was raising "concerns" over the rules in bilateral talks with Israel.

The Telegraph approached Cogat for comment but did not immediately receive a response.