M is an accomplished Palestinian woman from Ramallah in the occupied West Bank who was recently hired by a Jerusalem-based international organization. To enter Jerusalem to get to work, she had to apply for a magnetic card in addition to the standard entry permit. She was excited about this opportunity to work from the office in Jerusalem, until it all fell apart a couple of weeks later.

Recently she sat with Jerusalem Story and shared her story.1

It wasn’t easy to get the permit that would allow her to enter Jerusalem.

M is from Ramallah and carries the green Palestinian Authority (PA) ID card, which does not allow her to legally cross the checkpoints between Ramallah and Jerusalem.2 For that, she needs a magnetized card and an Israeli entry permit. With those in hand, she can enter Jerusalem by walking across the Qalandiya checkpoint (and only Qalandiya checkpoint) and scanning her card, and she must leave Jerusalem through the same checkpoint that same day. Israel does not allow Palestinians with such IDs to stay overnight in Jerusalem.

To get the permit, her employer, a European organization, had to provide a letter of guarantee stating that the organization was responsible for the applicant. M then submitted the letter and her application to the Israeli Ministry of Defense’s Coordinator of Government Activities in the Territories, known as COGAT for short.

“But I persevered, and I got it!” M says. “I got the permit at the beginning of January 2025, probably a good way to start a new year. This permit was valid for six months—until July 2025.”

When M got the permit that would allow her to travel in and out of Jerusalem, she realized that she had to physically demonstrate going “in” and “out” of Jerusalem.

M made a mistake the first time she used the card. A friend with a blue Israeli permanent-resident ID, driving a car with an Israeli (yellow) license plate, offered to give her a lift home, and they were not stopped at the checkpoint. She assumed everything was fine. The following day, she would realize her mistake: Because she had not disembarked from the car, walked to Qalandiya checkpoint, and scanned her magnetic ID as required on her way out of Jerusalem, she was in violation of Israeli regulations.

She was prohibited from entering Jerusalem for a week.

M reminded herself to always be sure to scan her magnetic card at Qalandiya on her way out of Jerusalem.

And then one day on her way into the city to her office, it happened again. She spent over an hour in traffic, parked her car at a bus stop, got on the bus that took her to Qalandiya, got off the bus, and walked to Qalandiya checkpoint on foot, presented her magnetic card—and found out that the machine wouldn’t let her through.

She was in shock. With no recourse, she had to go back home to Ramallah and miss work.

Once M got home, she logged on to an online application called Almunasseq (“the coordinator”), launched by COGAT to facilitate service applications, particularly for Palestinian workers from the West Bank with permits to enter Jerusalem.

During the coronavirus pandemic, Israel imposed a complete travel ban on Palestinians holding PA IDs and coming from the West Bank, causing severe financial hardship as people could not reach their work. After the pandemic, Palestinians wishing to apply for the removal of an imposed travel ban were instructed to use Almunasseq. However, the app is also used by the Israeli army to access the mobile’s location, microphone, camera, and all data stored and transmitted in the device.3

When M checked her status on the app, she found out she was banned from entry to Jerusalem for six months.

She had been “banned from entry,” she learned, only because she had forgotten to sign out of Qalandiya checkpoint the last time she was there.

When lines are long at the scanner, permit holders may log their exit through the app itself. To do that, the person has to take a photo as they are crossing the checkpoint, proving the time and the place of exit. There must be a physical photo of the person from the location of the military checkpoint.

In this way, Almunasseq gives the Israeli authorities access to files, photos, messages, and contacts of the Palestinians who must use it. The app also tracks the user’s location and has full access to their internet connection as well as the right to utilize any information on the device.4

M was indignant: “They already know I left Jerusalem! They can probably track my device and see I was out of Jerusalem! I was out of there! But I simply forgot to manually sign out with a photo of the location!”

“The app rarely works anyway,” says Umm Rami, who has an entry permit since she is a recovered cancer patient and travels between Ramallah and Jerusalem for medical checkups.5 “In fact, the machines at the [Qalandiya] checkpoint often freeze and don’t work. I understand the situation of M, because it has happened to so many people who have been banned from entry to Jerusalem. Many of them assumed they logged out through the app, or even through the machine, only to find out it hadn’t registered.”

So now M is banned from getting to her workplace for six months. After six months, she (and the organization she works for) will have to reapply for another entry permit, with no guarantee that she will receive it.

“How much one can remember in light of this situation? I had been feeling exhausted that it really escaped me to log out! It had been so tiring that day I left Jerusalem that I’m even surprised I made it out of the overwhelmingly busy checkpoint without fainting.” M explains how there were tens of people on their way out, it had been daunting, it was a long day, and she could barely make it in time to get home.

This law was enforced more strictly after October 7, 2023, when more than 150,000 Palestinians who hold PA IDs and live in the rest of the West Bank but work in Jerusalem had their work permits revoked altogether.6

“I cannot believe that after getting hired to work, I would lose my right to be able to make it to work.” Currently, she is banned from entry to Jerusalem until August 2025. “This means that I lost the permit which I had worked so hard to get.”

M appealed the decision, on the grounds that she had been feeling ill when she reached the checkpoint and simply forgot to log out. “But I haven’t heard back from them,” she sighs.

She has been checking the app obsessively to see whether a decision has been made. “I check Almunasseq as many as 10 or 12 or 20 times a day,” she says. “I’ve been working from home, grateful that I haven’t lost my job because of not being able to make it to work.” This type of situation affects not only one’s livelihood but also one’s mental and physical health. It is humiliating and unpleasant, especially in the winter, to have to follow these requirements, designed for population control.

Her employers are understanding, she says, but many people have lost their jobs as a result of such restrictions and complications. “These types of illogical policies are ultimately emptying Jerusalem of Palestinians. It’s making our lives so miserable, so unbearable. I would say that such practices are done intentionally so that people cannot take it anymore and opt to leave altogether.”

M is hardly alone. Thousands of Palestinians have similar stories to tell—stories of forgetting to sign out, or even worse, trying to do so electronically and finding that the application is malfunctioning—and now they too are banned from entering Jerusalem.