Courts: Judea and Samaria towns cannot bar Palestinian workers

(JNS) — Elected local officials in Israeli community throughout Judea and Samaria do not have the legal right to block Palestinian laborers from entering their communities if the military allows their employment, Israeli courts have confirmed in a series of recent cases, Israel Hayom reported on Sunday.

In a case brought by a group of Arab workers against the city of Efrat in Judea’s Gush Etzion region, a judge ruled that the municipality’s blanket ban on the entry of Palestinian Authority residents was illegal.

“Starting next Tuesday, in accordance with the army’s decision and the court ruling, construction workers will resume their activities within Efrat,” Mayor Dovi Shefler said in a message to residents last week.

In a conversation with Israel Hayom on Monday, Shefler noted that the court ruled that local officials in Judea and Samaria “do not have the authority to make the military’s instructions stricter.”

Srugim, an Israeli news site catering to the religious Zionist community, reported that at least three other towns received similar rulings in recent months.

A settlement reached in a Jerusalem court some five months ago following litigation between the town of Ma’ale Efrayim in the Jordan Valley and four construction companies likewise stated that the IDF would have the final say regarding the admission of P.A. laborers.

While the military banned Palestinians from working in Jewish towns throughout Judea and Samaria in the initial months following Hamas’s Oct. 7 massacre, Maj. Gen. Yehuda Fox, the then head of the IDF Central Command, in late 2023 lifted the access restrictions for industrial zones.

During the court proceedings, attorneys representing four development companies argued that Ma’ale Efrayim should allow P.A. workers to enter again, claiming that the IDF decision regarding industrial zones should also apply to construction sites in the town’s new neighborhood.

Last week, Knesset member Zvi Sukkot (Religious Zionism Party), in a letter to the IDF demanded that the military cancel its policy, noting it forces communities to let in workers despite security concerns.

“The communities must admit Palestinian laborers, even if they express explicit opposition to their entry,” Sukkot noted in a letter to IDF Central Command head Maj. Gen. Avi Bluth. “Palestinians are banned from entering inside the Green Line due to the security threat; in Judea and Samaria, they have to let them in, even if the communities oppose it.”

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

Two surveys last year found that some two-thirds of Palestinians in Judea and Samaria support the Oct. 7 attacks, in which around 6,000 Hamas-led terrorists broke through the Gaza border, murdered some 1,200 people, wounded thousands more and took more than 250 captive.

Plans to readmit Palestinians to Jewish communities have been met with dismay by many Israelis. A poll taken in Eli, a town of some 4,500 inhabitants in the Binyamin region of Samaria, showed that 82 percent of residents oppose their entry, regardless of added security measures.