The ministry said a lack of land zoned for hotel development has been one of the main obstacles to tourism development in Judea and Samaria.

By JNS

The Israeli Cabinet on Sunday approved a 27 million shekel (about $9 million) plan to boost hotel development in Judea and Samaria by removing planning obstacles and providing construction grants, the Tourism Ministry said.

The program, led by Tourism Minister Haim Katz, includes 7 million shekels (≈$2.3 million) to advance the statutory planning of projects between 2026 and 2030, alongside 20 million shekels (≈$6.7 million) in grants to support the construction, expansion and conversion of hotel accommodations.

Katz said his initiative seeks to unlock the tourism potential of the Jewish state’s biblical heartland.

“For the first time, we will lead a comprehensive move that combines planning, infrastructure development, the creation of land zoned for hotels and a dedicated track to encourage construction,” the minister said in a statement.

“This will remove barriers, provide certainty for developers and lay the foundation to increase the supply of hotel rooms, attract tourists and strengthen the local economy.”

The ministry said a lack of land zoned for hotel development has been one of the main obstacles to tourism development in Judea and Samaria.

Under the plan, the Tourism Ministry will prepare statutory plans for hotel projects and identify sites that can be developed or marketed for hotel construction.

The ministry said only about 115 million shekels (≈$38 million) had been invested in Judea and Samaria tourism over the past decade, compared with more than 2 billion shekels (≈$666 million) elsewhere in the country.

It said the initiative aims to increase the number of hotel rooms, encourage overnight stays rather than day trips and boost the local economy.

The plan follows a separate government decision in May approving a 50 million shekel (≈$16.7 million) program to develop tourism infrastructure in Judea and Samaria.

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s government has led an unprecedented drive to expand Israel’s control of Judea and Samaria, having approved tens of thousands of homes and dozens of new communities in the past three-and-a-half years.

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Construction of the hotel is set to begin in 2028, a hotel spokeswoman said.

By Etgar Lefkovits, JNS

Israel’s main airport will get its first-ever hotel as part of a major expansion and development plan.

Brown Hotels, a subsidiary of Israel Canada, announced on Friday that a building permit request for a five-star hotel near Ben-Gurion International Airport’s Terminal 3 had been approved.

The seven-story hotel will include approximately 260 rooms and will feature a rooftop complex with direct panoramic views of the planes, a swimming pool, a spa and a conference center.

Construction of the hotel is set to begin in 2028, a hotel spokeswoman said.

The project has been green-lighted by the National Licensing Authority as part of the airport’s development plan.

“The new hotel will set the airport at a completely new standard of comfort, quality, and luxury for travelers and visitors at the main gateway to Israel,” said Reuven Alex, CEO and partner of Brown Network of Israel Canada.

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A Jewish man checking into a hotel room in London turned on the TV to find a custom message waiting for him—a banner reading “Free Palestine.”

A visibly Jewish man checks into a hotel in London.

The TV greets him with a customized message of "Free Palestine."

This comes a mere day after a hotel in Bavaria told customers that Jews were not allowed to stay with them.

If it happens again tomorrow do we finally get to… pic.twitter.com/fQvdXYw8LO

— Hen Mazzig (@HenMazzig) June 3, 2026

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The Rodon Hotel’s billionaire Hong Kong owner made the generous offer after being contacted by Israeli brothers.

By Batya Jerenberg, World Israel News

Israelis stranded by the closure of Israel’s airspace due to the war with Iran have been enjoying a free stay in a luxury Cyprus hotel since Thursday, due to the generosity of its billionaire Hong Kong owner.

The owner of the Rodon Hotel, who wished to remain anonymous, had been contacted by Israeli brothers David and Ben Shlomo Cohen, who knew him through their real estate business on the island.

“We were also stuck in Cyprus,” the brothers told Israel’s Channel 12’s digital arm, Mako, “and it’s not an easy situation to be far from home without being able to return or at least knowing when we will be able to get home. That’s why we understand all the Israelis who are stuck even more.”

The man “really loves Israel,” they said, and “as soon as he heard about the war and realized that there were thousands of Israelis in Cyprus who had to spend quite a bit of money on their stay, he decided to help immediately. Not with words, but with deeds,” they said.

The 154-room, family-friendly hotel is part of a mountain-top resort located in the village of Agros, about a 40-minute drive from Limassol.

Its guests can enjoy pools, sports facilities, a gym and laundry service – a boon for those forced to unexpectedly extend their stay abroad until a rescue flight or boat ride is arranged to bring them back to Israel.

The offer, based on room availability, was made for a week, until June 26, with priority given to those in financial distress and those who had no place to stay, said David.

Requests for rooms could be made only through the brothers, not the hotel, they noted, offering Ben Shlomo’s email, Cohengroup38@gmail.com.

The generous donor, who owns hotels all over the world, also said that the offer could be extended based on the circumstances, they said.

As Israel and Iran agreed on Tuesday to a ceasefire, the owner may see his hotel rapidly empty of its sudden influx of guests, depending on whether the ceasefire holds and how quickly regular transportation can be reestablished to the Jewish state.

This may still take several days, however, as there are about 15,000 Jews stranded in Cyprus according to the country’s chief rabbi, Zeev Raskin, who is also the leader of Chabad on the island.

He told the Times of Israel news outlet on Sunday that the Hasidic sect, known for its Jewish outreach programs in centers around the world, had helped more than 12,000 such travelers in Cyprus since Israel launched Operation Rising Lion to destroy Iran’s nuclear and ballistic missile capabilities on June 13.

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Chief Rabbi Pinchas Goldschmidt, president of the CER, said his organization aims to promote dialogue, interfaith activity and public engagement.

By Shira Li Bartov, JTA

A meeting of leading European rabbis has been canceled in Sarajevo after high-profile appeals against their gathering.

About 50 Jewish leaders were headed to the meeting of the Conference of European Rabbis, scheduled for next week at the Swissotel in the capital of Bosnia and Herzegovina.

But on Tuesday, the hotel notified the CER that it was nixing their event because of “recent developments and significant public attention.”

Swissotel also cited “the aim of ensuring the safety of all participants and protecting our staff and property” based on “information and instructions from the authorities,” according to a message seen by the Jewish Telegraphic Agency.

This cancellation followed an open letter by the Bosnian Federal Minister of Labor and Social Policy, Adnan Delić, which was published in the local press.

Delić called on Sarajevo’s institutions to abandon the conference, which he described as “a message of legitimization of the occupation and systematic destruction of the Palestinian people.”

Delić said it was “morally insulting” for Sarajevo to host a gathering that would signal support for Israel, drawing a parallel between the plight of Palestinians in Gaza and Sarajevo’s history of besiegement and genocide by Serb forces in the 1990s.

The CER meeting was set to discuss European Jewish communities and religious rights.

Chief Rabbi Pinchas Goldschmidt, president of the CER, said his organization aims to promote dialogue, interfaith activity and public engagement. The CER has no official link with Israel.

“This last-minute, ministerial boycott of Jewish European citizens, dedicated purely to promoting Jewish life in Europe and furthering dialogue and democracy across the continent, is disgraceful,” Goldschmidt said in a statement.

Silvia de Candia, a spokesperson for Swissotel’s parent company Accor, said the hotel made a risk assessment based on “potential protests” and other security threats to customers and staff.

She said the cancellation was “in no way representative of any political affiliation or ideology.”

The speaker of Bosnia’s House of Representatives told local press that while he denounced the “genocide in Gaza,” foreign dignitaries and representatives of Bosnia’s religious minorities are welcome in the country.

“Much more radical advocates of Zionism than European rabbis” have visited, Dragan Mioković said.

Bosnia is home to an estimated 1,000 Jews who, like other minority ethnic groups, are legally barred from holding some political offices. The country is half Muslim, with Christians making up nearly all of the other half.

“Before every prayer, everything begins and ends with the word ‘shalom,’ which means peace,” Jakob Finci, head of Bosnia’s Jewish community, said about Jewish convenings, according to local press. “This is a sad slap that Sarajevo has given itself.”

Delić’s comments were joined by another denunciation from Mustafa Cerić, the president of the World Bosniak Congress and former Grand Mufti of Bosnia and Herzegovina.

Cerić said that Sarajevo could not platform the CER unless they took a stand for “the immediate cessation of genocide in Gaza,” a peace agreement and Israel’s withdrawal from the enclave.

Cerić also said that Sarajevo “has never fallen into the trap of antisemitism,” referencing the 15th-century arrival of Jews in the city after fleeing the Spanish and Portuguese Inquisitions.

These early Jewish settlers were legally second-class citizens, like other non-Muslims in the Ottoman Empire, though they received significant autonomy.

The CER meeting has been relocated to Munich after the Bavarian government agreed to step in as host.

Goldschmidt said that beyond the public appeal by Delić, he had not heard from any Bosnian government officials about the cancellation in Sarajevo.

He said the incident amounted to “a clear violation of EU commitments and values,” calling for the EU to reconsider Bosnia and Herzegovina’s accession as a member state. The country received candidate status to become a member in 2022.

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Paris hotel refuses to honor reservation after learning tourists are Israeli citizens, forcing the family out in the middle of the night.

By World Israel News Staff

A French hotel refused to honor a reservation made by an Israeli family last week, leaving the family of three out on the street in the middle of the night.

The incident occurred last Wednesday at the Novotel Porte de Versailles hotel in Paris when Mahmoud Omri, an Arab-Israeli, and his wife and three-year-old child were checking in to the hotel.

Omri had secured a reservation ahead of time, with the price set beforehand.

During the sign-in process, however, the receptionist saw that the three were carrying Israeli passports.

At that point, the receptionist became hostile, and informed Omri that the price for the room had now increased and that the original reservation could not be honored.

His demeanor changed when he saw our Israeli passports,” Omri told La Parisien Monday. “He suddenly said we would have to pay 1,219 euro for the room and that our reservation was invalid.”

“When I showed him the reservation that I had made through the Booking.com website, he said the hotel was fully booked.”

Omri emphasized that once the receptionist realized the family held Israeli citizenship, his behavior was consistently demeaning and offensive.

“Israel, you think you are kings of the world, you will not get a room in this hotel,” Omri recalled the receptionist saying.

At 1:30 a.m., the three were forced to leave the hotel, and ultimately returned to the airport, where they found another hotel.

On Friday, Omri filed a complaint with local police.

Accor, the parent company which owns the hotel, has reportedly launched an investigation into the incident and offered compensation to the Omri family.

A hotel official responded to the controversy, claiming that the hotel was fully booked, and that the family had demanded a discount.

“The exchange became loud and the receptionist was the one to call the police,” hotel officials said.

The incident comes after a Japanese hotel also refused to honor an Israeli man’s reservations, accusing Israel of “war crimes” in the Gaza Strip and informing him that he would not be permitted to stay at the hotel.

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Seventy percent of the quota is specifically set aside for agricultural laborers.

By Pesach Benson, TPS

Seeking to address a labor shortage, Israeli officials approved a quota of 92,000 foreign workers to fill jobs in agriculture, industry, hotels and restaurants, the Prime Minister’s Office announced on Tuesday.

This marks the first time Israel has authorized foreign workers for the restaurant industry.

Seventy percent of the quota is specifically set aside for agricultural laborers. Israeli agriculture is facing staggering losses in production and manpower.

Before October 7, Israel had 29,900 foreigners, mostly Thais, working in farms, orchards, greenhouses and packing plants.

Israeli workers who might have filled the gaps have been called up for military reserve duty while Palestinian laborers are currently banned as security risks.

Many growing areas are within two kilometers of the Lebanese border where farmers have not been able to freely access fields and orchards.

“Despite the challenges of the war, the packing house works around the clock, with the aim of providing fresh Israeli produce continuously, while dealing with the directives of the Home Front Command,” said Asaf Keret, CEO of Beresheet, a fruit-packing business jointly run by several kibbutzim in the Upper Galilee and Golan Heights.

Keret was addressing a delegation of fruit growers and agricultural officials touring Beresheet’s orchards.

He called on the government to boost agriculture with further measures, such as grants for planting, raising lang quotas, and other incentives.

“The fruit growers are at the height of the picking season and are faced with picking under the fire of Hezbollah, and we are prepared to market the produce of the farmers of the Galilee and the Golan to the marketing chains and wholesale companies.

Thanks to our dedicated farmers and workers, I am sure that we will be able to supply the produce to the residents of the State of Israel,” Keret said.

The remaining foreign workers will fill gaps in industry, and hotels, with 2,000 to work for the first time in restaurants.

Since October 7, Hezbollah rocket barrages and drone attacks have killed 10 civilians and 15 soldiers.

Leaders of the Iran-backed terror group have said they will continue the attacks to prevent thousands of residents of northern Israel from returning to their homes.

Israeli officials have been calling for Hezbollah to be disarmed and removed from Southern Lebanon in accordance with UN Security Council resolution 1701, which ended the 2006 Second Lebanon War.

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