Thursday, May 9, 2013

Crossing the border into Israel


To get into Israel, we did the drive up from Aqaba, following the Dead Sea Highway to the border crossing point called the Allenby Bridge (aka King Hussein Bridge aka Al-Karamaeh Bridge – depending if you’re Israeli, Jordanian or Palestinian).

It forms the only entry/exit point for Palestinians who live on the West Bank & is the only point where Palestinians can travel abroad (by exiting from here into Jordan & then to Jordan’s International airport).

The process of crossing into Israel (on this particular day) was not the most “welcoming” shall we say & it took us 3½ hrs to get through.

There was a lot of frustration & feeling that the processes (apart from the security screening which I’m happy to put up with) were more about showing who’s boss & making life difficult for a certain group of people.

That’s all I’m going to say apart from this bit of advice: don’t take photos of the Israeli soldiers at the border – they don’t like it & it will result in you being taken off the bus & questioned.

Before you say anything – it wasn’t me !!

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