High Court Allows Palestinians to Enter Israel for Memorial Day Event

Israel’s High Court has decided to allow a hundred Palestinians to enter the country for a Memorial Day event, making an exception to the ordered closure of crossings from Gaza and the Palestinian Authority for security reasons.

The army made exceptions for “humanitarian, medical or other exceptional cases” for Memorial and Independence Days with permission from Israel’s military liaison to the Palestinians, Maj. Gen. Kamil Abu Rukun.

The court went a controversial step further, however, as it accepted the petition of the Combatants for Peace organization seeking entry for PA families to participate in the so-called “Israeli-Palestinian memorial ceremony.”

Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu called the decision “wrong and disappointing,” and said, “there is no place to have a memorial service that compares the blood of our sons and those of terrorists.

“That is why I refused to enable the ceremony participants’ entry and I think the High Court shouldn’t have intervened in that decision of mine,” he added.

Likud MK Yariv Levin, who reportedly is Prime Minister Netanyahu’s preferred candidate for justice minister, denounced the ruling.

“If anyone needed further evidence of the vital and urgent need to fundamentally fix the justice system, and specifically changing the nature of the Court, they got it in the form of this outrageous ruling,” Levin said.

“It’s regrettable that precisely at this time, on the eve of Memorial Day and Independence Day, the Court again chooses that which separates over that which unifies,” he added.

Otherwise, the closure will begin at midnight Monday and continue until 12:01 a.m. on Friday.