Israel’s Supreme Court rejected on Monday the government’s policy of prohibiting Palestinian university students from entering Israel and gave authorities 60 days to submit a list of criteria for granting visas to such students, the newspaper Haaretz reported. The government had defended its unilateral ban, arguing that it would be impossible to conduct a security check on every student seeking to enter Israel.
The ruling came in a lawsuit filed on behalf of Sawsan Salameh, a 29-year-old Palestinian woman who is enrolled in a Ph.D. program at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem. Ms. Salameh was recently granted permission to enter Israel, but for only six months. The court’s chief justice, Dorit Beinisch, said that the government must reconsider Ms. Salameh’s application to extend her permit and, in the absence of a “security or private reason preventing the extension of the permit, we assume the renewed permit will be granted.”
