Israel has announced that it will "facilitate travel" through its entry points for Palestinian Americans from the blockaded Gaza Strip, as part of its efforts to meet US conditions for the Visa Waiver Program (VWP), but human rights groups in the United States dispute that this claim represents real reciprocity.

According to a statement by the US Embassy in Israel, those registered in the Palestinian population registry in Gaza have new procedures for entry and exit into and transit through Israel in the short term, as of the afternoon of September 11. However, the embassy’s website clarifies a number of conditions related to entry procedures.

For example, a US citizen and Gaza resident who has spent more than 50 percent of the past five years in Gaza (as the Israeli government has confirmed) can apply for a permit to enter Israel through the Erez crossing, and if they are outside Gaza at the time of application, they can Apply for entry through any international port of entry.

Among those US citizens residing in Gaza who have spent more than 50 percent of the past five years outside Gaza, they can enter Israel with their US passports and without a business or tourist visa for 90 days, including transiting through Israel to and from the occupied West Bank.

But American citizens cannot use their American passports to cross from Israel into Gaza.

Chris Habibi, director of national government affairs and advocacy at the American-Arab Anti-Discrimination Committee (ADC), commented that the process is now beginning to address the needs of Gazans to some extent, “but from what I can tell, it feels like a continuation of the separate and unequal system they are putting in place.” ".

Habibi added in a press statement that the process for Americans from Gaza is very complex, and has created additional levels of access in what was already a multi-level system for Palestinian Americans.

“Even within Palestinian Americans from Gaza, there are different rules depending on how long you have lived in Gaza over the past five years,” Habibi said.

And then, if a Palestinian-American from Gaza (a resident of Gaza) wants to know where they will end up [within those levels], the information that Israel is requesting from them is very aggressive. "I mean, we're talking about pay slips," which is an intrusion into the smallest private matters.

The US Visa Waiver Program allows foreign visitors to stay in the United States for up to 90 days without a visa, with the same privilege for US citizens in participating countries. Israel has long sought to join the initiative.

Last July, US Ambassador to Israel Thomas Nides and Israeli President Isaac Herzog, who was visiting Washington, signed a “reciprocity agreement” to allow American citizens the ability to enter Israel freely.

Also last July, the United States announced that it would monitor Israel and the treatment of Americans entering the country over a period of six weeks, and then it would make a decision on whether or not to allow Israel to enter the visa waiver program by September 30.

If Israel succeeds in meeting the American conditions, the implementation of the visa exemption program will enter into force in November of this year.

But many experts on US policy on Israel and Palestine have raised concerns that Washington is rushing to assess it without proper scrutiny.

A website is attributed. any. To Aya Ziada, director of advocacy at Americans for Justice in Palestine (AJP Action), implementing new entry procedures near mid-September does not leave enough room for an effective trial period.

Ziada told Middle East Eye: “Although the overall trial period for the Visa Waiver Program was short and ineffective enough not to determine whether Israel would reverse decades of discrimination, the inclusion of Gaza demonstrates how rushed and ineffective this entire process is.” .

She added: “They were not included from the beginning, and including them 19 days before the final decision was made is absolutely irresponsible on the part of the United States.”

AJP Action argues that the current terms of the Memorandum of Understanding between Israel and the United States leave plenty of room for loopholes to signal genuine reciprocity on the part of Israelis that “ensures that Palestinian Americans continue to be treated differently from other travelers.”

“Although it became easier for Palestinian Americans to enter Palestine and the occupied territories during the trial period, they were not treated equally during the visa exemption trial period,” Ziadeh said.