Saudi Arabia prevents Palestinian pilgrims who live in Israeli controlled areas from visiting for Hajj and Umrah with temporary Jordanian passports
In a prominent Saudi decision, the Saudi Arabian authorities decided to prevent Palestinians from entering the KSA to perform Hajj and Umrah because they hold temporary Jordanian passports.
This decision would prevent more than one million Palestinians from the post 1948 areas in Israel from traveling to perform Hajj.
On the other hand the authorities in Riyadh had agreed that Palestinian pilgrims can travel from Israeli controlled areas from Ben-Gurion Airport to Amman, then directly to the Saudi Arabia, in a decision considered to be as “a beginning of normalization relations with Israel”.
Since there are no diplomatic relations between the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia and Israel, Palestinians in Israel used to travel to Saudi Arabia to perform Hajj and Umrah via temporary Jordanian passport which had been carried out since 1978, in which the late King Hussein issued a decree granting Palestinian pilgrims the possibility of coming to Jordan to get Jordanian temporary passport through the Jordanian ministry of religious affairs which gave them the ability to enter and pass Saudi border.
This passport is used by pilgrims when they leave Saudi Arabia, and they return it back to the Jordanian authorities after performing Hajj and returning to the Jordanian capital Amman.
The Israeli newspaper Ha’aretz revealed that, the Hajj Committee members were forbidden to enter Saudi Arabia by temporary Jordanian passports in order to prepare the visits for those who had registered to perform hajj and Umrah.
The newspaper pointed out that the Hajj and Umrah Committee headed to the Chairman of the Follow-up Committee for the Palestinian public at homeland Mohammad Baraka, and Israeli-Arab Knesset member Ahmad Tibi, and asked ask the Jordanian authorities to request from the Saudi authorities to work to cancel this decision.
The newspaper pointed out that the Jordanian Ministry of religious affairs, pointed out that the matter is under discussion by the higher authorities in the ministry, but a solution has not yet been found, explaining that the Saudi decision also affects tens of thousands of Palestinians who have temporary Jordanian passports who live in Jordan and the West Bank, but they can use a Palestinian passport.
At the Hajj and Umrah Committee, they refrained from publicly criticizing Saudi Arabia, but in internal meetings they expressed their appreciation that the decision was aimed at examining the possibility that Muslim Palestinians in Israel, who hold Israeli passports, could enter Saudi Arabia directly without passing through Jordan.
“The committee said that the assessment was raised and deliberated in the talks, but they do not have information to confirm this”.
We very much hope that the Palestinians will not become internal Palestinians”, a source in the committee said.
Muslims to hostages because of political issues”.
The Saudi authorities had informed the Jordanian Ministry of Religious affairs that it would not allow any pilgrim to cross Jordan without a Jordanian national number.
This procedure, which has not yet been officially justified, would prevent more than 2.5 million Palestinians from entering Saudi Arabia to perform Hajj which is one of the five pillars of Islamic religion.
