Battle over W. Bank Palestinian work permits heats up after Jerusalem terror attack

Defense Minister Israel Katz announced canceling 750 Palestinian work permits and demolishing homes after the Jerusalem attack, drawing pushback from security chiefs.

A battle broke out within the defense establishment on Tuesday as Defense MinisterIsrael Katz announced the elimination of certain Palestinian work permits and the demolition of particular Palestinian residences in response to the terror attack in Jerusalem on Monday.

More specifically, Katz said that he would cancel the work permits of 750 Palestinian workers from the villages of Qatannah and Al-Qubeibah, where the two terrorists who perpetrated Monday’s attack were from, and that he would order the demolition of Palestinian residences in those areas which had been built illegally.

The defense minister’s statement generated significant confusion since he mentioned that he had the support of outgoing COGAT chief Maj.-Gen. Raasan Elian, but he did not mention the rest of the defense establishment.

The Shin Bet and the two IDF commanders who have led the Central Command during the war, Maj.-Gen. Yehuda Fuchs and Maj.-Gen. Avi Bluth, have pressed heavily for the government to restore the over 200,000 West Bank Palestinian work permits approved before the war started, and which the cabinet dropped to around 10,000.

Although the political echelon said dropping the work permit numbers was necessary to avoid terrorists after October 7, there has been no evidence to date of any statistically significant number of terrorists from those who received work permits.

In fact, the Shin Bet and the IDF are convinced that the cabinet’s decision to cancel work permits drove many normative persons to terrorism by denying them work opportunities and leaving them nothing to do with their time.

There are no indications that the Shin Bet or IDF Central Command have changed their view after the Monday terror attack, and The Jerusalem Post understands that they are still in favor of increasing, rather than decreasing, work permits for West Bank Palestinians (vs for Gazans.)

In contrast, the Post can confirm that Elian does support Katz’s policy change.

While Elian also supports increasing work permits for West Bank Palestinians in general, he believes that a narrow targeted work permit penalty against villages that produce terrorists could be effective in deterring future terror from such villages.

‘Only a few bad apples’

When pressed that such a policy could backfire in the villages that were generally peaceful, with only a few “bad apples,” that would view the collective punishment as unfair, Elian would say that some past targeted penalties had demonstrated the opposite, that normative villages understood they were only being penalized because of the isolated incidents.

The penalty had led the villagers to increase pressure on extremist elements in their village against perpetrating terror, in order to have their work permits restored.

Sources did not dismiss the possibility of the work permits being restored if the villages remained quiet, though there was no set timeline for doing so.

The Post also understands that the announcement regarding destroying Palestinian residences was not coordinated with IDF legal authorities.

In fact, it is unclear what legal authority the IDF has to destroy Palestinian residences in Area A or Area B of the West Bank under Palestinian control because they were built “illegally,” given that the PA decides what is legal and illegal building in those areas.

Israel can demolish Palestinian residences built in Area C without approval or in areas under PA control if connected to specific terrorists and approved by Israeli legal authorities and the courts.

But this would not apply to a general rule against Palestinians who had not committed terror.

Katz did not specify where or how many residences might be demolished.