Israel Admits Patients After ‘Palestine’ Letterhead Feud
Israel on Thursday allowed the entry of some 35 Palestinian medical patients from the Gaza Strip after initially barring them because “State of Palestine” had appeared on the letterhead of their application.
A Palestinian official said Israel relented and permitted their entry without any change to the logo. An Israeli official said the letterhead had been changed to the “Palestinian Authority”.
Israel does not recognise a Palestinian state, whose creation it says should stem from peace negotiations. It voted against a U.N. General Assembly resolution in 2012 that gave de facto recognition to a sovereign Palestinian state.
“After our intervention, the Israelis allowed the patients to enter with the same papers, with the words State of Palestine,” said Nasser al-Sarraj, deputy Palestinian Minister of Civil Affairs.
Citing its opposition to the state logo, Israel banned about 50 patients from crossing on Wednesday but permitted the entry of 10 others deemed to be urgent cases.
A spokesman for Israel’s military-run COGAT authority, which issues entry permits, said the entry requests were re-submitted under a Palestinian Authority letterhead, an entity established under interim peace deals.
“Thirty-five requests were examined and approved and they are expected to cross today. The rest, cases that are not urgent, are still being examined. In all, 200 patients and their escorts are expected to cross today,” said Major Guy Inbar.
Sarraj said Israeli and Palestinian health officials would hold further discussions over the issue.
Israeli treatment for patients from the Gaza Strip – an enclave run by Hamas Islamists hostile to Israel – is arranged by the Palestinian Authority, headquartered in the West Bank.
Palestinian health ministry officials rejected the Israeli ban on Wednesday as a “blackmail” and said they have been using the new letterhead for a year.
A message from our CEO & publisher Rachel Fishman Feddersen
I hope you appreciated this article. Before you move on, I wanted to ask you to support the Forward’s award-winning journalism during our High Holiday Monthly Donor Drive.
If you’ve turned to the Forward in the past 12 months to better understand the world around you, we hope you will support us with a gift now. Your support has a direct impact, giving us the resources we need to report from Israel and around the U.S., across college campuses, and wherever there is news of importance to American Jews.
Make a monthly or one-time gift and support Jewish journalism throughout 5785. The first six months of your monthly gift will be matched for twice the investment in independent Jewish journalism.
— Rachel Fishman Feddersen, Publisher and CEO
