To which airport you can fly to Palestine? Where this airport? How far this airport from my destination in Palestine? Is the airport in Gaza or in the West Bank?
Group of questions you might ask before you come to Palestine, where you want to book your ticket ahead of time and to get best price. This is what all travelers do when they are willing to visit any country in this big world.
Does Palestine have an airport?
Let’s start by saying that Palestine does not have any airport, it is supposed to have one in Gaza which established in 1998 and lasted for only two years till 2000 when the second Intifada (Arabic word for the uprising in English) started. The Gaza International Airport or Yasser Arafat International Airport as it was named at that time had completely destroyed by the Israeli forces.
Therefore and since 2000 Palestine does not possess any airport on its territory which means that no flights headed toward Palestine since that date. Although the airport is destroyed, three small Palestinian aircraft are still working in one of the local airports in Egypt.
What do you have to do then?
It’s easy, you have two options; first, fly to Ben-Gurion International Airport which located in Tel-Aviv, and then from the airport to Jerusalem via shared taxi or a private taxi that takes you from the airport to your destination on the Palestinian side. In Jerusalem, you can go to the Arab central bus station in the Musrara area and then via bus to any of the Palestinian cities. Flying to Ben Gurion (Tel Aviv) is the easiest point of arrival in our opinion. Most Americans and Europeans are issued a 3-month visa upon arrival and clearing customs.
The second option is to fly to Queen Alia International Airport in Amman, Jordan, and then via Taxi which costs you around 30-35 JD (Jordanian Dinar) and will take you directly to the Jordanian-Israeli border. This border is known as the Allenby/King Hussein Bridge, it is 57km away from Amman and located in the southern Jordan Valley. The crossing border is open from Sunday till Thursday (08:00 am – 08:00 pm) for arrivals and 8:00 am to 2:00 pm for departures where Friday and Saturday is only open for 5 hours from 08:00 am– 1:00 pm because of the Jewish holydays.
From Jordan the journey into Palestine is significantly longer, and it may well involve lengthy delays, several hours possibly, at the Allenby/King Hussein Bridge. Once you are through the checkpoint, however, you find a shared or private taxi that will take you the rest of the way directly to Jerusalem, Ramallah, Hebron, Nablus, or any other towns.
Traveling to Palestine/ West Bank via Jordan
Traveling to Palestine through the Allenby Bridge (Israeli)/King Hussein Bridge (Jordanian) is something you should try to equip yourself for before your arrival in Jordan. Be prepared to not have anyone communicate with you in English at each of the three borders you have to travel through in order to get into Palestine.
Journeying direct from Amman International Airport (Queen Alia) in Jordan takes roughly an hour. It will cost about 30 JDs (Jordanian Dinars). At the border, the procedure is fairly forthright, but if you carry a foreign passport make sure you ask for directions to the foreign passport checkpoint, and, out of the two buses that take you to the Israeli border, make sure you board the one for foreign passengers.
If you don’t know where the bus for foreign passengers is located, you can ask any person around you. Once on the bus, it can take up to 40 minutes to get from the Jordanian checkpoint to the Israeli checkpoint. It all depends on how long it takes to fill the bus up and the drive over the bridge.
Once you arrive at the Israeli border, collect your baggage and follow the crowd or ask for directions to where you can get your bag tagged, ready for it to be taken away and checked. You will again have to go through basic border control procedures and passport checking, where you may or may not be asked to wait for your details to be verified. Your passport might be held for a number of reasons, and the staff at the Israeli border control are not too keen on explaining why, so it is best not to ask and instead wait it out.
After you leave the Israeli border, you will find shared taxis waiting for you. These Services will take you to Jerusalem. If you are going to other West Bank cities besides Jerusalem, you need to ride another bus to the Palestinian border. Once you are at the border you will find many shared taxis that go to all Palestinian cities. A shared taxi from there will cost you about 35 shekels to Nablus, and about 50 to Hebron or Ramallah.
