IDF appeals court ruling allowing Palestinians to be banned from Judea, Samaria communities

 Before the war, some 200,000 Palestinian workers were employed throughout the Jewish state, including 30,000 in Judea and Samaria.

By Akiva Van Koningsveld, JNS

The Israel Defense Forces’ Military Advocate General has appealed a court ruling allowing Judea and Samaria municipalities to ban Palestinian workers from entering Jewish communities, Hebrew media reported on Saturday night, citing people involved in the case.

“The appeal filed by the Military Advocate General’s office shows a deep disconnect and, unfortunately, shows that in some areas, the shift that should have happened after Oct. 7 did not take place,” Omer Rahamim, CEO of the Yesha Council, told Israel’s Channel 14 News, referring to the Hamas-led invasion of southern Israel on Oct. 7, 2023.

The Yesha Council represents the 500,000-plus Jews living in communities across Judea and Samaria.

“Local authorities are responsible for the security of their residents, and they have crucial discretion in security decisions,” he stated, adding: “Trying to take away their authority is a serious mistake. I call on the MAG to withdraw the petition and accept the lower court’s decision.”

Three months ago, the Ariel Local Affairs Court ruled in favor of Mayor Yair Chetboun’s decision to bar some Palestinian workers from the Samaria capital following the Oct. 7 massacre.

“A court must be careful not to substitute its own judgment for that of the local authority, which is legally empowered and accountable to its voters on public safety matters,” Judge Amir Dahan wrote in the ruling.

The ruling, on a case brought by several business owners, marked the first time a court had affirmed municipalities’ power to restrict the workers’ entry.

Previous court battles on the issue often ended in settlement deals that saw the army oversee entry approval. In some cases, judges decided that local politicians did not have the right to block Palestinians from entering if the IDF approved their employment.

“The judge sided with us,” Chetboun told Channel 14 News on Saturday. “Suddenly, a [military] legal adviser shows up. … She disagrees with the judge—who had given a very precise explanation, that the mayor made a security decision within his discretion, a wise decision—but the [IDF] Central Command’s legal adviser says, no, I do not agree with this.”

“We really experience this as a direct blow to the security of my residents, their most basic, existential security,” said Chetboun.

The IDF’s Spokesperson’s Unit did not respond to a JNS request for comment as to why it had filed the appeal by time of publication on Sunday.

Before the war, some 200,000 Palestinian workers were employed throughout the Jewish state, including 30,000 in Judea and Samaria.

In Ariel, Chetboun barred Palestinian laborers from returning to their employment in businesses throughout the city, though construction workers still enter daily to advance the building of new apartments.

A survey taken last year in Eli, a town of some 4,500 inhabitants in the Binyamin region of Samaria’s south, showed that 82% of residents opposed the workers’ entry, regardless of security measures.

Two polls in late 2023 found that some two-thirds of Arabs in Judea and Samaria supported the Oct. 7 massacre, in which around 6,000 Hamas-led terrorists broke through the Gaza border, murdered some 1,200 people, wounded thousands of others and took more than 250 captive to Gaza.