![This photo illustration shows a visa stamp on a foreign passport on June 6, 2020 [CHRIS DELMAS/AFP via Getty Images]](https://i0.wp.com/www.middleeastmonitor.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/05/GettyImages-1224917096-scaled-e1683127097286.jpg?resize=1200%2C800&quality=85&strip=all&zoom=1&ssl=1)
More than 2,000 Palestinian-Americans have travelled into or through Israel since it eased conditions for them at border crossings as part of a bid to achieve a visa waiver deal with the United States, an Israeli official said on Wednesday, Reuters reports.
Ahead of a 30 September deadline to qualify its citizens for visa-free admission to the United States, Israel has reciprocally loosened access through its main airport and at the Occupied West Bank's boundary for Palestinian-Americans.
The US embassy has declined comment on the trial period, which comes amid unusually intense strains between US and Israeli leadership over wider Palestinian policies and contested judicial changes in Israel.
An Israeli official said that, in the first week of the six-week pilot, 1,100 Palestinian-Americans had come through its "international crossings", an apparent reference to Ben Gurion Airport near Tel Aviv and the Jordanian border. A similar number entered Israel from the West Bank.
"In total, more than 2,000 Palestinian-Americans in the first seven days," the official, who declined to be identified, told Reuters, citing the first formal tabulation of entry data.
READ: US quietly inspects Israel crossings for its Palestine dual-nationals
The new arrangements mean additional travel options for tens of thousands Palestinian-Americans who live in the West Bank.
To obtain the visa waiver deal, Israel, which imposes tight controls on movements by Palestinians and does not usually allow them to travel through Ben Gurion Airport, must show that it treats Palestinians who hold a US passport the same as it treats all US citizens.
Israel is also meant to demonstrate equitable treatment for Palestinian Americans, who have long complained of subject to excessive scrutiny and, at times, denial of entry.
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