Israel Stops Issuing Work Visas to Aid Agencies

[Scurrilous]

Aid Agencies Complain That Their Staff Have Been Denied Work Visas by Israel

<snip>

"The Israeli Ministry of Interior has stopped granting work visas to foreigners who work for aid agencies in the Palestinian Territories and East Jerusalem.

Dozens of the world's leading humanitarian agencies have offices in the Occupied Palestinian Territories and work to provide vital services to Palestinians in the West Bank, Gaza and East Jerusalem.

But in recent months foreign staffers for organizations like Oxfam, Save the Children and Doctors without Borders have been denied proper visas by Israeli authorities. Instead they are getting tourist visas which do not permit the holder to work and only last three months.

The head of Doctors Without Borders in Jerusalem Jean-Luc Lambert told the London Times, "We are now in a very precarious legal position. We can't get B1 visas (work visas) only tourist visas and with this it is not permitted for us to work."

Since Israel took over the Palestinian Territories including East Jerusalem in 1967, aid workers have been given year-long work visas and have been able to use them in occupied areas.

Aid workers fear this new restriction is intended to limit their access to Palestinian areas particularly in contested East Jerusalem and those parts of the West Bank which are officially under full Israeli control."

more

[T Wolf]

1. The holocaust continues, funded by OUR dollars. LIke the US, Israel is not a "good actor"

anymore.

If they ever were.

[damntexdem]

3. Apartheid marches on.

It gets more and more oppressive.

[dixiegrrrrl]

2. This is gettig NO play in the USA.

And not much is allowed here at DU, it is a dungeon topic.
Sad.

[ConsAreLiars]

4. A few dozen sent to aid Haitians and US media is going "Look! Look!" excitedly. Millions denied aid

in the occupied territories and there is not even a whisper. They use the few dozen sent to Haiti to praise/prove Israel's superior "humanitarian" credentials and as an implied contrast to those they subjugate.

Yet its leaders are denying aid workers access to the imprisoned and systematically punished population, and refuse to allow Palestinians who wished to provide help in Haiti travel permits. Never mentioned.

Yeah, those are wonderful and humane policies, so long as one accepts the premise that Palestinians are not human but dangerous maniacs which can only be controlled by a policy of systematic starvation and frequent massacres. A view many are allowed to be show here.