Palestinian official sources said on Monday that the Israeli occupation authorities have recently initiated measures to prevent foreign tourists from entering the West Bank cities.
Spokesman of the Palestinian Ministry of Tourism Jeryes Qamseyya said that Tel Aviv sent letters to the Israeli tourism offices stipulating that foreign tourists should not be granted visas to the Palestinian territories if they are travelling to the West Bank cities especially Bethlehem and Occupied Jerusalem.
Qamseyya affirmed in a statement to Quds Press that the restrictions imposed on foreign tourists fall in line with the Israeli ongoing targeting of the tourism sector in the Palestinian territories.
Qamseyya stressed “The decision will not pass because Israel will not be able to promote tourism without the Palestinian holy sites” adding that most of the Israeli tourism agencies are likely to reject the new measures.
The Palestinian official pointed out that the Ramallah government did not receive any official decision about the matter emphasizing that the Ministry of Tourism will launch an intensive campaign to counter the decision.
In an earlier interview with Quds Press Qamseyya said that Israel steals Palestinian products from Palestinian websites and claim that they are part of the Israeli tourism.
The Palestinian tourism sector is suffering from Israeli tight measures that include imposing restrictions on the foreign tourists’ movement who usually travel on the Israeli airlines to the Palestinian territories and restricting their movement inside the territories through the erected checkpoints and the apartheid wall which separates Jerusalem from the West Bank cities.
The Palestinian tourism is also facing difficult conditions due to the continuous blockades and incursions by the Israeli army which have escalated since the eruption of the Jerusalem Intifada in 2015 and led to decreasing the number of tourists.
Although the occupied Palestinian territories have a unique religious and historical heritage tourism in the occupied West Bank faces many challenges that have caused a decline in the tourism sector’s contribution to the GDP because of the constant Israeli pressures.
