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Home » Getting an Israeli Stamp on Your Passport

Getting an Israeli Stamp on Your Passport

Getting an Israeli Stamp on Your Passport: If you’re planning to go to Palestine, you’ll run into Israeli authorities because they control the borders. It might sound a bit scary, with lots of stories and rumors going around. But don’t stress too much! Usually, when you reach the border, the security folks might ask you a couple of questions. But, honestly, it’s no big deal.

Most people get into Israel and the West Bank without any issues. The main worry for many travelers is getting an Israeli stamp in their passport. We’re here to share info that should calm your nerves and help you feel more at ease about this part of the journey.

Getting an Israeli Stamp on Your Passport

Getting an Israeli stamp in your passport can worry a lot of folks who plan to visit Palestine or Israel. People coming for volunteering or studying in Palestine often know that having this stamp might bring some complications. Some have heard stories that it could limit their travel choices or even lead to problems like getting detained or kicked out of certain countries.

To clear up the rumors and give future volunteers and visitors the real scoop, let’s talk about Israel’s visa rules and what happens if you do get an Israeli stamp in your passport.

Receiving an Israeli Visa or Stamp on a Passport

For a long time, when people visited Israel—whether by flying into Ben Gurion International Airport in Tel Aviv or crossing the borders from Jordan or Egypt—they’d get an Israeli visa or stamp in their passport, just like in any other country.

But here’s the catch: this could make travel a bit tricky for visitors. Before Israel became a country, the Arab League had a boycott against the Jewish community in the area known as the former Mandate of Palestine. Even after Israel was founded and the wars happened, this boycott stuck around.

Now, some countries still follow this boycott, and they won’t let Israeli citizens or people with Israeli stamps in their passport enter. Some might even include stamps from other countries, like if you crossed from Jordan at the Allenby Bridge.

Good news: Jordan, Egypt, and the Palestinian Authority made peace with Israel, so they don’t follow the boycott anymore. Mauritania never did, and Algeria, Morocco, and Tunisia aren’t enforcing it.

In 2020, the UAE made peace with Israel, too, so people from the UAE and Israel can travel back and forth freely. But keep in mind, some Arab and Muslim countries like Iraq, Lebanon, Libya, Sudan, Syria, Yemen, Iran, and most of the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) members still won’t let you in if you have an Israeli stamp.

Do I Get a Stamp or Visa From the Palestinian Authority?

The Palestinian Authority doesn’t have control over Palestine’s state borders, and it’s not in charge of giving out visas or stamping passports. So, when you arrive in Israel, the visa you get there is what you’ll use for traveling around both Palestine and Israel.

Israeli Visa on Separate Pieces of Paper

Israel understands the challenges and inconvenience this situation can pose for visitors. To address this, they introduced a solution in January 2013: Israeli visa slips issued on separate pieces of paper. These slips have entry and exit records, along with 2D barcodes.

If you’re passing through Ben Gurion Airport nowadays, you can expect to receive one of these slips. The process has been slower at border crossings, though. Even though Jordanian border crossings are supposed to issue these slips, there have been stories of foreigners getting stamps at these crossings as recently as 2015.

If you’re leaving through the land border of Jordan or Egypt and want to avoid an Israeli exit stamp in your passport, you can ask the Immigration Officer to stamp the blue slip issued by Israel instead—just remember to make your request before handing over your passport.

Our Volunteers Get their Israeli Visa on a Paper

Volunteers, interns and students in the West Bank at the Study in Palestine as well as visitors to the West Bank and Israel receive a visa slip and do not need to worry about any impact on their future travel plans. However, if by some chance one should find themselves with an Israeli stamp in their passport there is a relatively easy solution:

For a fee, most people can receive a new passport from their government, even getting an emergency one from their country’s embassy if travel plans necessitate it. Some nations, such as Austria, Canada, Finland, France, Germany, Ireland, The Netherlands, New Zealand, Poland, Portugal, Russia, South Africa, Spain, Sweden, Ukraine, UK and USA allow citizens to hold two separate passports, meaning one could simply keep one passport for traveling to and from Israel, and another for traveling to countries like Saudi Arabia or Lebanon.

A Visitor’s Experience

Tara , from the UK ,visited Palestine in February 2020 and travelled through most of the West Bank. She says: “I had previously travelled to several Middle Eastern countries and I was anxious about the fact that stamps from places such as Jordan and the UAE might negatively affect my chance of being accepted upon my arrival at Ben Gurion. Furthermore, I was also keen not to receive an Israeli visa stamp in my passport in case this meant that I would not be able to visit other Arab countries in the future. I need not have worried as there was no problem at all.

Moreover, I did not have my passport stamped, instead I was given the Israeli visa on a blue slip of paper, as were all the other members of the group travelling with me. I was granted entry by an Israeli border official after answering two simple questions, the first being about where I would be staying and the second question asked was enquiring as to my job title.

The return journey elicited more in depth questioning – such as why I visited Jordan, who I knew there, when I last spoke to them and what about- but I answered all the questions calmly and truthfully and was allowed to go on my way. I kept my passport and visa slip with me at all times during my trip to Palestine as it was often necessary to show both of these documents at the various checkpoints. There were never any problems for me in gaining access to anywhere in the West Bank.”

Final Remarks about Israeli Visa

There are a lot of rumours about travelling to Palestine or Israel and the effect of an Israeli passport stamp on future travel plans. It is important to seek out correct and truthful information and disregard the falsehoods. While there have been problems travelling to Israel and Arab nations using the same passport in the past, the vast majority of today’s travellers should have no such issues.