Israel’s Channel 1 News on Wednesday night reported that three leftwing NGOs which are furnished with Israeli government issued entry permits for PA Arabs, intended to encourage peaceful coexistence, have been selling those permits illegally to PA Arabs.
According to reporter Eliran Tal, the going rate for each permit was roughly between $500 and $1,000.
The corrupt behavior was exposed on Tuesday, when two officers working for the Coordinator of Government Activities in the Territories (COGAT) became suspicious of the entry permits that were presented by a few Arabs at a check point. The suspects were interrogated and confessed to having purchased their permits from the three NGOs.
Police and COGAT plan to summon the heads of all three NGOs for interrogations, to discover whether the sales were initiated from the top or were only endeavors by local staff on the ground.
The identity of the NGOs was not revealed, and it is unknown whether they are Israeli or international. Tal pointed out that the fact that the illegal sale of entry permits took place in the midst of a wave of terror could escalate the investigation from simple fraud and corruption to serious security violations, since those permits could have been used by terrorists seeking to harm Israeli civilians.